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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



Baptist Beliefs 



Rev. E. Y. Mullins, D.D., LL.D. 

President of the 
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. 



1912 
Baptist World Publishing Company, 

Incorporated 

Louisville 9 Ky. 






Copyright 1912. 

by 

BAPTIST WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY. 



J* 

gCLA3l2842 



CONTENTS. 

Introduction .. 5 

The Scriptures 10 

God 16 

Providence 20 

The Fall of Man. 24 

—Election 26 

The Mediator 29 

The Holy Spirit 35 

—Regeneration 39 

—Repentance 40 

Faith 41 

Justification and Adoption 45 

Sanctification 49 

— The Perseverance of the Saints 53 

The Kingdom of God 55 

^-The Second Coming of Christ 58 

The Resurrection 59 

The Judgment 59 

The Church 62 

—Baptism 68 

~ The Lord's Supper 70 

— The Lord's Day 71 

— r Liberty of Conscience 72 

— Missions 73 

Education 74 

Social Service 76 

Heaven and Hell. 77 

New Hampshire Declaration of Faith . . 83 
Covenants 93, 95 



BAPTIST BELIEFS.' 

A creed is like a crystal with many angles 
and facets. As the crystal is formed in obe- 
dience to natural law, so a creed is formed in 
obedience to a spiritual law. Michael Angelo 
chiseled the marble into the heroic figure of 
Moses as the expression of his artistic vision. 
The great creeds are the chiseled results of 
spiritual vision. What men see and feel they 
must express. Doctrinal statements are given 
exact form for the same reason an Indian 
makes his arrow straight and sharp. Both are 
designed as weapons, or implements to achieve 
results. 

This is not written as a formal creed. If so 
it would be much more condensed. A very 
few sentences at most would be sufficient for 
each article. But there are a numiber of ex- 
cellent Baptist creeds in existence already, 
and what is proposed here is not the setting up 

*The author of this volume expects to publish at 
some future time an extended work on Theology. It 
will not, however, supersede this manual, which is 
designed for more popular use. 



6 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

of another, but rather a restatement and inter- 
pretation for the general reader of those now 
in existence and in common use among us. 
An effort is made to avoid technical theological 
terms as far as possible in order to the simplest 
and clearest statement. There are, of course, 
many topics touched upon in the pages which 
follow where the paths of discussion lead in 
various directions. We are required by the 
limited scope of our undertaking, however, to 
abstain from too elaborate treatment of any 
subject. A general survey of the beliefs com- 
monly held by Baptists with the necessary 
cross lines to mark off the sub-divisions of 
teaching clearly and distinctly is all we can 
hope to accomplish within our prescribed lim- 
its. 

One caution is needed at the outset. Creeds 
are very valuable when used properly, but, 
like all other good things, dangerous when 
used otherwise. Creeds are the natural and 
normal expression of the religious life. The 
right to make them is nothing more nor less 
than the divinely given right to think. He 
who would forbid men to make creeds expres- 
sive of their own religious life in the light of 
Bible teaching, would therein forbid the free 
exercise of human freedom to think. But ob- 
serve this point: creeds are the expression of 
religious life, of vital or living experience. 
The great creeds which have powerfully in- 
fluenced the life of mankind have all arisen 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 7 

in periods of great religious energy and deep 
religious experience. They are like lava 
which comes hot from the volcano. An inner 
power expels them. The lava cools afterward. 
The creed tends to become stereotyped and 
formal. 

There is another truth which must always 
be kept in mind. The right to make creeds 
is simiply another way of saying that we have 
no right to enforce them upon men against 
their wills. The voluntary principle is at the 
heart of Christianity. The right of private 
judgment in religion is a right which lies at 
the core of Christian truth. The right of A 
to make a creed expressive of his 'own religious 
life implies the right of B to make his own 
creed as well. It would be tyranny to 
forbid A to make his creed, and it would 
be equal tyranny to compel or attempt 
to compel B to accept the creed of A. If A 
and B should by voluntary co-operation come 
to see alike and thus adopt the same creed 
there would be no tyranny. And if A and B 
and any number of others should thus set forth 
their beliefs for all the world to understand, 
this would be simply the exercise of their free- 
dom in Christ. And this is precisely the way 
Baptist creeds and confessions of faith have 
arisen. No Baptist creed can be set up as final 
and authoritative apart from the Scriptures. 
They are all subject to revision when- 
ever and wherever other Baptists see fit to 



8 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

make a fresh statement of their doctrinal 
beliefs. Of course, Baptists have a right 
to the peaceful exercise of their freedom! 
in holding and maintaining their own views 
as to Christian truth. In this the group or 
denomination corresponds to the individual in 
the matter of freedom. Consequently they 
themselves must judge when an individual or 
group within the larger body has departed 
from the common view sufficiently to warrant 
separation. The enforced continuance of an 
individual with the larger group after radical 
and hopeless divergence of belief has arisen is 
a tyranny equal with the enforcement of the 
beliefs of the group upon the individual. Re- 
ligious freedom, in other words, is a right of 
the group as well as of the individual. The 
voluntary principle applies equally and alike 
to both. It is on this principle indeed that 
most of the denominations since the Reforma- 
tion have come into existence. Denomina- 
tionalism is the result of the right of private 
judgment in religion. A Baptist should be 
the last man in the world to question the right 
of a Presbyterian, Methodist or any other, to 
the full and free exercise of his right of private 
judgment in religion. If denominationalism 
ever ceases to exist and all Christians become 
one it will be not by means of artificial schemes 
of union, but through the gradual growth of 
unity of view, that is, through the operation of 
Dhe voluntary principle. 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 9 

Another peril of creeds is that we shall mis- 
take the shell for the kernel, the form for the 
life. Creeds that are forged when religious 
life is at white heat may remain after the fire 
has gone out. The creed without the life then 
becomes a chain to bind, not wings on which 
the soul may fly. The one and only remedy, 
then, is to return to Christ and kindle the 
flame of religion once more. Creeds are useful 
only so long as they are the normal expression 
of life and are used as a means of propagating 
life. To hold a creed as intellectually true mere- 
ly, without the inner life and power, is not a re- 
ligious act at all. The New Testament knows 
nothing whatever of any such holding of 
creeds and we would do well to reject all creeds 
and go straight to the New Testament rather 
than lapse into a barren intellectualism 
through a dead creed. The danger is so great 
that this barren intellectualism will arise, or 
that creeds will be employed as whips to coerce 
men into uniformity of belief by carnally- 
minded champions of the faith, that many 
Baptists exercise their freedom by having 
nothing to do with creeds, or rather by repu- 
diating all of them, and looking to the Scrip- 
tures alone for their doctrinal beliefs. Here, 
again, they are strictly within their rights 
as freemen in Christ. Nevertheless, I think 
creeds perform a useful function in edu- 
cating us to unity of faith and practice, so 
long as they are not w^orn as death masks for 



10 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

defunct religion, -or employed as lashes to 
chastise others; so long as they do not arrest 
life and growth — in short, creeds help rather 
than hinder. A cre&d is like a ladder. On it 
you may climb up to a lofty outlook, a purer 
spiritual atmosphere, or you may climb down 
to the low platform of a barren orthodoxy. 

In this spirit the following pages are writ- 
ten. The author has no sort of thought that 
his statement is the best that can be made, or 
in any sense final. Others will improve on 
these statements and w r e shall come more and 
more to a clear understanding of the meaning 
of the Bible and of the religion of Christ. 

THE SCRIPTURES. 

There are three marks which in a general 
way may be said to sum up the position of the 
Scriptures in the belief of Baptists. The first 
is sufficiency. The Scriptures give us enough 
truth for all religious purposes. Nature re- 
flects the divine attributes to a certain extent 
and ? according to Paul, if men should actually 
live up to the light of nature within, in con- 
science, and without, in the universe, they 
might arrive at a knowledge of God, so tha + 
they are without excuse. For, owing to their 
naturally evil bent, men refuse to follow the 
light of nature (Romans 1:19-21). Taking 
men as they are, therefore, on account of sin, 
the light of nature is insufficient. A revela- 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 11 

tion of God to them and a coming of God into 
their lives are the only means for their re- 
demption. In the Scriptures we have all the 
truth required 1 for the religious life of men. 

Another quality of the Scriptures which fits 
them to serve as the source of light and truth 
in religion is certainty. There are greater or 
less degrees of certainty in science and philoso- 
phy. Yet scientific and philosophic theories 
are always subject to revision. Science does 
attain to permanent truth. But this truth of 
science is not religious truth at all, save in the 
general sense that all truth is of God. The 
laws of nature, like the law of gravitation, or 
the laws of motion, or the laws of chemical 
affinity, for example, have no direct religious 
value at all. None of them can save the soul. 
Physical science, indeed, ends where religion 
begins, viz., at the realm of spirit and of per- 
sonal fellowship between God and man. Phy- 
sical science cannot prove or disprove the soul's 
immortality or the existence of God. Philos- 
ophy, in like manner, fails to prove, as religion 
requires, the great truths of human life and 
destiny. Philosophy gives us a set of rational 
theories of the world, some of which include a 
belief in God, and some of which do not. Each 
theory or world view of philosophy selects 
some one thing, matter, or motion, or mind, or 
will, or personality, or something else, and de- 
duces all the rest from that. But so long as 
men are at liberty to select these various things 



12 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

on which to build their philosophies there will 
be as many kinds of philosophy as there are 
preferences among men. No one philosopher 
can compel the others to select his own starting 
point, any more than one woman can require 
other women to agree with her taste as to the 
most beautiful shade of silk or shape of hat. 
Hence we repeat, philosophy does not yield 
certainty in religion. The Bible does. The 
Bible tells us how to find God and by follow- 
ing its directions we actually find him. God 
comes into our life and we know beyond a per- 
adventure that the Bible speaks to us truly con- 
cerning God. 

The third quality of the Scriptures is author- 
itativeness. The Scriptures speak with author- 
ity, as does no other literature in the world. 
This authoritative note which rings so clear in 
the Bible is not due to anything external to 
itself. No court made it authoritative by de- 
cree. No church council made it so by de- 
cision. No pope made it so by hurling 
anathemas at those who denied it. The early 
church councils in the second, third and 
fourth centuries did not make the Bible au- 
thoritative. They simply recognized the 
authority of the Book itself. The canon of 
Scripture under God took care of itself. It 
was inevitable that this dynamic and mighty 
literature would come together in a vital and 
organic unity since it was all created by one 
common life and power of God. 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 13 

Behind this sufficiency and authoritative- 
ness of the Scriptures of the Old and New 
Testaments is their inspiration. Holy men of 
God spoke as they were moved by the Holy 
Spirit. There are many ways of explaining 
the method of inspiration which men have 
adopted. We cannot here discuss them,. The 
fact is the supreme thing. The Bible is God's 
message to man given to supply the needs of 
his religious life. When we find that message 
we have God's truth to us which is all we need 
for religious knowledge, faith and obedience. 

The process of inspiration is necessarily more 
or less mysterious and obscure, since it is God's 
act through his Spirit stooping to the plane of 
the human intellect and experience and em- 
ploying these as channels of truth to other 
men. Someone has compared this act of con- 
descension on God's part to the slightly stoop- 
ing statue of a beautiful woman found in a 
European art collection. By no process of 
measurements has it been possible to determine 
just how much below the height of the erect fig- 
ure the stooping statue measures. In like man- 
ner we are without any power to determine 
precisely how God adapts himself to human 
capacity in the process of inspiration. The re- 
sult, however, we possess in the oracles of the 
Scriptures, and these serve all our practical re- 
ligious needs and ends. 

The Bible is the book of religion. Let us 
keep this in mind. It is a mistake to think 



14 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

of it as a text-book on science or any other 
subject except religion. In conveying religious 
truth the writers of the Bible could only gain 
a hearing for their inspired religious message 
by employing the means of conveying ideas in 
common use. It is astonishing, indeed, how 
the Bible statements conform broadly and gen- 
erally to the teachings of science. But the 
biblical writers had to use the language of ap- 
pearances, of things as they looked to the ordi- 
nary eye, not the language of exact science. 
Suppose Job, for example, had been inspired 
to use the Newtonian law of gravitation in his 
debate with his friends, would it have helped 
out the argument? Would it not rather have 
discredited him more than ever? 

The law of gravitation, as stated by exact 
science is that bodies attract each other di- 
rectly as the mass and inversely as the square 
of the distance. Now we can imagine the 
Spirit of God revealing this to Job. But it 
implies the whole of modern astronomy with 
its Copernican view of the universe. It came 
as the result of careful and painstaking ex- 
periment and calculation. His friends would 
have been unconvinced by it had Job employed 
it. It would have been to them an unknown 
tongue, save as the result of a miracle of rev- 
elation to them also, enabling them to antici- 
pate the researches of science thousands of 
years. And this indicates clearly how God re- 
fuses to rob man of his own proper task of re- 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 15 

search and discovery by miracles of revelation 
concerning physical matters. The Bible was 
not meant to teach us "how the heavens go, but 
how to go to Heaven". Job would therefore 
probably have discredited his own message had 
he sought to become a channel for the com- 
munication of a knowledge of the laws of as- 
tronomy in the scientific sense. 

The man of today makes a similar mistake 
w T hen he stakes the integrity and authoritative- 
ness of the Bible on its exact agreement with 
the Newtonian law of gravitation or the Coper- 
nican astronomy. The Bible is not a book of 
science. It is a book of religion. 

The Bible must be interpreted. But we 
have for our illumination in interpreting the 
same Spirit who inspired it. Everything in 
the Bible is not equally binding on us, because 
wicked men speak, Pharaoh, Judas, the devil. 
We must get God's message by interpreting 
under the Spirits guidance. There are parables 
•and allegories and symbols; literal and high- 
ly picturesque statements; and there are writ- 
ers with varied individualities and points of 
view. There is progress from less to more of 
truth. God gave the truth gradually. In all 
these ways the necessity for interpretation is 
upon us. It is a great and high responsibility, 
but we cannot evade it, and we cannot know 
what God's message to us is until we have 
interpreted it and made due allowance for all 
the facts which have been named. But when 



16 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

we have found out what the Bible means to 
say to us we have the truth. 

We may sum up all by saying the Bible 
culminates in Christ. He is the crown of the 
whole. All doctrine before and after Christ 
must be seen in the light which shines from 
him if we are to understand it. Christ, then, 
is God's message to us and we are to under- 
stand the whole Bible simply and solely in its 
relations to Jesus Christ, the Son of God and 
Savior of the world. 



2 Timothy 3:15-17; Luke 16:29-31; Ephesians 2:20; 
2 Peter 1: 19-21; Romans 15:4; Hebrews 1:1, 2; Psalms 
19:7, 8; Romans 1:19-21; 1 John 5:9; Romans 3:1,2; 
John 16:13; 15:26, 27; 14:25, 26; 1 Corinthians 2:4, 10, 

11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16; 1 John 2:20, 27; John 6:45; 1 
Corinthians 14:26; 2 Peter 3:16; Psalm 119:130; Isaiah 
8:20; Acts 15:15; John 5:39; 1 Corinthians 14:6, 9, 11, 

12, 24, 28; Colosaians 3:16; Matthew 22:29; Acts 28:23. 



GOD. 

It is impossible to define God, because he is 
more and greater than all definitions. This 
does not mean that we must remain ignorant 
of God's character. For we do possess most 
real knowledge of God through the revelation 
he has given us in grace and power in our 
hearts and lives. There are certain qualities 
or attributes which we ascribe to God in con- 
sequence of his revelations in nature and in 
experience and in Scripture. These must not 
be taken as if they were exhaustive statements 
of what God is either himself or in his mani- 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 17 

testations. First, we say God is a spiritual 
J>eing. Jesus said to the woman at the well, 
"God is spirit, and they that worship him 
must worship him in spirit and in truth." This 
is, we may say, the first truth in spiritual reli- 
gion. God has not a visible outward form or 
figure. He is pure spirit. 

It is curious how many people fail to grasp 
the idea of God's spirituality and cling to the 
pictures of him learned in the nursery. The 
writer has met several adults, among them 
students in theology, who had difficulty in 
overcoming the physical way of representing 
God. Some think of him as a very wise old 
man with gray hair and beard sitting above 
the world on a great throne, or else they cling 
to other more or less vague and misty pictures 
of God under various human forms. It is very 
necessary that we grasp the idea of God's 
spirituality and nearness, his omnipresence and 
power in our lives if we are to walk with him 
as we should. 

Again God js one. There are not many 
gods, but only the one true God. The doc- 
trine of many gods is polytheism and against 
it the prophets of the Old Testament poured 
out their inspired and burning eloquence. The 
Old Testament is the record of how God trained 
Israel to the thought of a pure monotheism, 
that is, to the belief in one holy and spiritual 
God. The unity of God is another of the first 
truths of religion. 



18 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

God is personal. Some modern theories seek 
to enforce the idea of an impersonal God, or, 
in the current expression, an impersonal 
"world-ground". This thought of an imper- 
sonal ground of the world grows out of the 
thought of substance which science uses in its 
dealings with nature. It is sought to reduce 
all things to one physical principle in order 
to explain scientifically everything that exists. 
But the impersonal substance is not God. Re- 
ligion teaches, -and most of all Christianity 
teaches, that God is above as well as in nature ; 
that nature and substance, while the expres- 
sion of God's wisdom and power are not God 
himself. Religion dies when God ceases to be 
personal in the thoughts of men, because every- 
thing in religion requires a personal God. It 
is not surprising, then, that when men forsake 
the idea of a personal God they lapse into 
polytheism and invent many gods, or else they 
adopt the philosophy of pantheism instead of 
religion, and remain content with that. 

Again, God is holy. The moral law is 
grounded in God. He is its author and is 
himself clothed with all moral perfections. 

God is infinite. This means that God is 
free of all imperfections. Our minds cannot 
grasp the infinite fully. The word is nega- 
tive in the sense that it seeks to express the 
thought that God has no limitations of any 
kind. God, then, is infinite in all his at- 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 19 

tributes — wisdom, holiness, love, power and all 
others which may be named. 

The Scriptures also reveal to us that God 
manifests himself to men not only as one but 
as triune. In the Old Testament God's Spirit 
appears in many forms of activity, although 
the Trinity does not appear in the Old Testa- 
ment as a fully developed truth as in the New. 
The New Testament clearly shows that there 
are three forms of God's personal manifesta- 
tion in the world, called Father, Son and Holy 
Spirit. This does not mean that God shows 
himself as first one, then another of these. They 
are distinct in their personal activities. Of 
course, when we call them persons we 
do not use the word in its ordinary 
sense. A human person is a separate and dis- 
tinct individual and if we use the word in 
this meaning referring to the Trinity we would 
imiply three gods, which would be polytheism. 
Yet personality is the most fitting word we 
can find to express the truth as to the Trinity. 

The Bible does not explain the Trinity. It 
simply gives us the facts. Theologians and 
philosophers have tried hard to give an intel- 
lectual expression to the doctrine of the Trin- 
ity. None of them have succeeded fully. Some 
of them have been very elaborate and have 
attempted entirely too much perhaps. Never- 
theless we must accord them the right to make 
these attempts. It will probably be found in 
the end, however, that the briefer the defini- 



20 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

tion of the Trinity the better for practical pur- 
poses. God is revealed to us as Father, Son 
and Holy Spirit. These have personal qual- 
ities. Yet God is one. This is the New Tes- 
tament teaching. Beyond this we tend toward 
speculation. 

Exodus 15:11; Psalm 147:5; Psalm 83:18; Isaiah 
6:3; 1 Peter 1:15, 16; Mark 12:30; Matthew 10:37; 
Matthew 28: 19; 1 Corinthians 12:4-6; 1 John 5:7; 
John 10:30; John 5:17; John 4:24; Ephesians 2:18; 
2 Corinthians 13:14. 

PROVIDENCE. 

God who created the world upholds it. In 
the ongoing of the world there are no surprises 
to God. He foresees and foreknows all things 
whatsoever which may or can or do take 
place. God is above the world but he is also 
in it. He does not hold himself aloof from his 
universe and watch its movements as if it 
were merely a machine. He is present in it 
everywhere at &11 times. He is in and through 
and above all things. 

God's purpose includes all things which 
come to pass. Some things, however, God sim- 
ply permits. God is not the author of sin. 
It entered the world not by his approval but 
only by his permission. Yet he overrules it. 
Somehow the possibility of sin was connected 
with the freedom of God's intelligent creatures. 
It is this freedom which lifts men above the 
brutes. Yet it was this same freedom which 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 21 

made possible a sinful choice. That sinful 
choice in like manner made possible a display 
of God's love and grace which could not have 
appeared in a non-sinning universe. This does 
not condone sin; it simply indicates how God 
transformed it into an occasion for boundless 
condescension and love. 

Most of the difficulties about God's grace 
and human freedom are due to the prevalent 
way of thinking about grace and its action 
upon us. Grace comes from without, but it 
acts within us. It flows in as it were and works 
itself out through our minds, consciences and 
wills. It moves us freely. It inclines us to act 
voluntarily as God wills. It is not like a crow- 
bar resting on a fulcrum by means of which a 
stone is moved. It is rather like water in a 
millrace filling the receptacles on the rim and 
turning the wheel. Our faculties are the re- 
ceptacles on the wheel of our personality. Or 
again, grace is like the sap in a tree, and our 
conduct is like the fruit. The fruit is pro- 
duced from within. Grace is not mechanical, 
but personal in its action. This distinction 
explains hardshellism. Preaching, persuasion, 
missions, evangelism, are all based on the prin- 
ciple that grace is not a mechanical but a per- 
sonal force. If grace were a crowbar and men 
stones, hardshellism would be right. It is the 
crowbar conception of grace that destroys mis- 
sions. Grace works with those means which 
influence the free choices of men, persuasion, 



22 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

argument, appeal, warning, exhortation, etc. 
The Whole New Testament conception of 
preaching grows out of the fact that grace is 
a personal, not a mechanical, force. Ideas, 
feelings, volitions in the preacher through 
God's Spirit, awaken ideas, feelings, volitions 
in the sinner. This is the method of grace. 
A bulb may have sleeping in it the potentiali- 
ties of a beautiful flower. Something from 
without must enter it, however, before it can 
ever become a flower, something it does not 
possess, viz., the sunlight and its warmth. 
Transferring the bulb from one basket to an- 
other would not bring out the flower. The 
Spirit of God must enter and change the sin- 
ner's heart before the slumbering possibilities 
can be brought forth. It is the unfolding of 
his personality into moral and spiritual life 
which is the aim of the Gospel. This can only 
be accomplished as the living personality of 
one man becomes in some way the medium 
through which the truth and grace and power 
of God enters the life of another. At least 
this is God's ordinary method, whatever may 
be true in exceptional cases like that of Saul 
of Tarsus and others. 

God made man free and leaves him free. 
God never overrides the will of man. In his 
action upon man's will he always respects that 
will. "Irresistible grace" is a phrase we some- 
times hear. But properly understood it never 
means irresistible in the physical sense, as if 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 23 

God dealt with us as a parent might with a 
crying and disobedient and rebellions child in 
lifting it bodily and carrying it where the 
child refused to go. God will have us come 
to him freely. Grace always persuades and 
convinces and makes us willing to come, how- 
ever mysterious and mighty it may be in its 
action upon our hearts. 

The crown of God's creation is man. All 
the previous stages led up to this being who 
was made in the image and likeness of God. 
This is the chief interest of religion in the 
wonder and miystery of creation. The ques- 
tion of how God created the world, or how 
long it has been since the creation of man, are 
questions which are not fully answered in the 
Scriptures. Science is at work on them and 
may or may not succeed in answering these 
questions fully. The book of Genesis contains 
light on some points, but not all. One thing 
is clear, however, and that is that God made 
man in his own image and that man sinned. 
Another point is clear and that is that the 
redemption of sinful man is the center of 
God's providential care of the world. If we 
would understand providence then we must 
study what God has done to redeem the world. 

Genesis, chapters 1 and 2; John 1:2,3; Romans 1:20; 
Hebrews 1:2; Job 26:13; Colossians 1:16; Romans 
2:14-16; Isaiah 46:10, 11; Psalm 135:6; Ephesians 1:11; 
Acts 2:23, 24; Acts 7:1-60; Acts 14: 16-18; Acts 17:24- 

28. 



24 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

THE FALL OF MAN. 

The meaning of the fall of man is that 
man sinned against God. Sin is not human 
infirmity merely, nor is it a mistake merely, 
nor is it ignorance merely. Sin, again, is not 
merely a step upward in man's evolution to- 
wards his highest development. The fall was a 
downward and not an upward movement of 
man. It involved guilt and transgression. It 
gave rise to the need of pardon, of grace and 
redemption. Man came under condemnation 
as the result of his fall. The fall, then, means 
that man was really man when he fell and not 
merely a creature who was on his way towards 
becoming man, a candidate, as it were, for 
manhood. Of course, we are not to suppose 
he possessed all that has come to man in man's 
struggle, nor all the experience or knowledge 
which history has 'brought. Man was not 
made omniscient, nor even learned in the mod- 
ern sense. He was made free from sin and 
condemnation, and through the temptation of 
Satan he fell. 

In consequence of the fall of man sin has 
become hereditary. No teaching of science 
is clearer today than the hereditary transmis- 
sion of traits of character. The Old Testament 
gave religious recognition to the principle long 
before science discovered and demonstrated it. 
As a result of this sinful heredity of race, all 
men actually sin when they acquire capacity 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 25 

for sinning. We believe that infants dying 
in infancy are saved not because they have no 
share in the operation of the hereditary ten- 
dency to sin, but because Christ atoned for all 
the race, and somehow children dying in in- 
fancy, before actual sin, share in the blessing 
of that atonement. The Scriptures really say 
little of the salvation of infants dying in in- 
fancy, but they say enough to warrant firm be- 
lief in that salvation. The grace of God deals 
with them in a special manner, no doubt, as 
we mJust hold if we believe in hereditary sin 
and at the same time in the salvation of infants 
dying in infancy. 

Ho one is or can be saved without repentance 
and faith, who is capable of exercising repent- 
ance and faith. This is the clear teaching of 
the Scriptures. Hereditary and actual sin ren- 
der men not only corrupt but also guilty and 
condemned until they are justified by faith in 
Jesus Christ. 

All men are not equally sinful, of course, 
and no man is as bad as he can be. But all 
man's faculties and powers are affected by the 
operation of sin in his nature, and all are 
equally incapable of saving themselves. All 
are dependent alike upon God's grace for sal- 
vation. 

Genesis 1:31; Genesis 2:16, 17; Genesis 3:12, IS: 
Genesis 3:6-24; Romans 3:23; Genesis 6:5; Titus 1:15; 
Romans 3:10-18; Romans 8:7; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 
5:12-21; Galatians 5:16-21; Isaiah 53:6; Ephesians 
2:1-3; Ezekiel 18:19,20. 



26 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

ELECTION. 

In consequence of their sinful nature and 
habitual choice of evil, men, if left to them- 
selves, would inevitably refuse salvation. A 
Gospel, or good news of salvation, announced 
to a race of sinful men and left without the 
active energy of God's grace to make it effec- 
tual, would surely come to naught. There are 
two choices necessary in a man's salvation: 
God's choice of the man and man's choice of 
God. Apart from infants and others incapa- 
ble of responding to the Gospel call, juration 
never comes otherwise than through God's 
choice of man and man's choice of God. But 
God's choice of man is prior to man's choice 
of God, since God is infinite in wisdom and 
knowledge, and since he will not make the 
success of his Kingdom dependent on the con- 
tingent choices of men. God does not fling 
out the possibility of salvation among men, 
say, like a golden apple, and leave it for 
men to use or not use as they will. He 
keeps his own hands on the reins of his 
government. Yet in doing so he must 
needs observe his own law of freedom as 
written in man's moral constitution. This is 
the problem* and task which calls for infinite 
wisdom, love and power: To save man and yet 
leave man free to choose salvation. Free-wi ll 
in man is as fundamental a truth as any other 
in the Gospel and must never be canceled in 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 27 

our doctrinal statements. Man would not be 
man without it and God never robs us of our 
true moral manhood in saving us. 

In dealing with a race of beings who, if 
left to themselves, would inevitably choose, 
evil, and yet whose freedom must be respected, 
how else could God act in saving them than as 
he has acted, viz., in not only sending his Son 
as Mediator and Redeemer, but also in devis- 
ing means and instrumentalities for persuading 
men to believe and accept the Gospel. If he 
should pick them up bodily, as it were, and 
force salvation upon them against their wills, 
he would do an immoral thing. Indeed, such 
a method is inconceivable with free beings. 
Yet if God holds aloof from men and merely 
awaits their choice of him, none would choose 
him. The Gospel, the Holy Spirit, the church, 
the preacher, the message or sermon, and all 
other means of persuading and inclining men 
to believe are, therefore, necessary in order that 
God may save, first, because he has chosen man. 
and second, through man's choice of God. 
The decree of salvation must be looked at as a 
whole to understand it. Some have looked at 
God's choice alone and ignored the means and 
the necessary choice on man's part. Others 
have ignored God's choice and have made all 
depend on the means and man's choice. But 
you cannot split up the decree of God into 
little bits and understand it by looking at the 
pieces. You must view it as a whole. 



28 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

Election is sometimes said to indicate ar- 
bitrariness and partiality in God. But this 
is an error. God wills that all men should be 
saved and come to a knowledge of the truth, 
(1 Timothy 2:4), as Paul assured us. Cer- 
tainly Jesus died for the whole world (Johix 
3:16). Election is not an arbitrary choice on 
God's part. Infinite love is behind his every 
act. He -adopts the only method by 
which the salvation of any would be possible, 
and no doubt he yearns for and desires that 
as rapidly as possible all men should hear and 
know the truth and obey it. This is why he 
chooses men not merely to salvation but 
to service. Every saved man or woman or 
child is intended by God as a messenger and 
worker to make known his grace and power 
to others. 

Election leaves no room for boasting or pride 
or sense of merit on our part, but it does, when 
truly understood, fill us with humility and a 
sense of the manifold wisdom of God in dealing 
with his free creatures. And it should inspire 
us with a holy sympathy with God in his ef- 
fort to save men who are disobedient and re- 
bellious and carnal in their choices. With 
God we may, then, patiently co-operate in 
persuading men to believe the Gospel, in the 
full assurance that God's grace will prove equal 
to the great task of leading even the rebellious 
to forsake their sins and freely choose him; 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 29 

and that the energetic action of God's holy- 
will in a world held even in the grip of hered- 
itary sin will be efficacious in redeeming men 
and establishing among them his eternal King- 
dom. We should be hopeless in our labors if 
the outcome of our efforts were contingent 
upon the unaided response of sinful men. All 
uncertainty vanishes, however, in the full per- 
suasion, warranted by the Scriptures that God 
guides, controls and efficaciously wills the glor- 
ious outcomie. 



Acts 13:48; Exodus 33:18, 19; 'Matthew 20:15; Ephe- 
sians 1:3-14; 2 Timotlhy 1:8, 9; 1 Peter 1:1, 2; 2 Thes- 
salonians 2: 13, 14; 1 Corinthians 4:7; 1 Corinthians 
3:27; 1 Thessalonians 2:12, 13; 2 Timothy 2:10; John 
«:37-40; 1 Thessalonians 1:4-10; 2 Peter 1:10, 11; He- 
brews 6:11; Acts 4:27, 28; Numbers 23:19; 1 Timothy 
5: 21; John 10:25-29; Romans 9:19-33. 



THE MEDIATOR. 

There is one Mediator between God and 
man, Jesus Christ. He was born of the Virgin 
Mary through the power of the Holy Spirit. 
He lived a sinless life; taught perfectly the 
truth about God and human destiny ; was him- 
self the true manifestation of God in the flesh ; 
died on the cross and atoned for the sins of 
men; was buried; rose again from the dead; 
appeared to the disciples ; ascended to the right 
hand of the Father, and gave the Holy Spirit 
to his people. He now presides over the des- 



30 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

tinies of his church and will come again at the 
time appointed by the Father to judge the 
world. 

Two or three points call for special empha- 
sis. Attempts are often made in our day to 
hold that Jesus was the first true revealer of 
God in conjunction with the other view that in 
no sense did he transcend the human. This 
is a favorite view with many who feel 
that science forbids them to accept the 
true divinity or deity of Jesus. They 
would make of him simply the great- 
est of the prophets or the greatest 
of the saints, but as such they think that 
he brings us the true knowledge of God. If 
men insist on applying the criterion of physi- 
cal law to religion, however, they can never 
prove the existence of God even. For the laws 
of nature come to an end when we rise above 
nature into the realm of persons, and especial- 
ly when we come to deal with the divine per- 
son. Science explains horizontally or on a 
level, we may say. The cause of every effect 
in physical nature lies behind the effect on the 
same level. The series of causes and effects in 
nature is like a row of bricks. Knock over the 
first brick in the row and in turn each of the 
others will be knocked over. Nothing is ex- 
plained in nature save as we assign something 
we know to explain a new and unknown thing. 
The effect must be explained in terms of the 
cause. A brick must be explained by another 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 31 

brick. This is the meaning of the law of the 
transformation of energy or physical causa- 
tion. If nature is a row of bricks, then we 
never find a God in nature, but only an endless 
row of bricks. This I say is the way science 
treats nature. Science, therefore, never can 
prove or disprove God's existence. It is difficult 
to see how men can accept the testimony of 
Jesus as to what God is unless they admit that 
he reveals God not merely from the human 
but also from the divine side. Jesus was not 
merely the "Prince of Saints", as Martineau 
has called him. He could not be a revealer of 
God in the full sense of the word unless he was 
more than the chief of saints. We would seem 
to be left with no sure knowledge of God, there- 
fore, unless Jesus was moie than a man. 
For science never demonstrates God. and 
the experience of even the greatest of 
saints would always be open to question 
when he attempted to convey to us h 
knowledge of the infinite God. As limited and 
human in mental capacity his experience 
might be perfectly genuine, but the rigidly 
scientific objector could always raise a question 
as to whether the explanation of the experience 
was the true and correct one. To himself the 
explanation might be perfectly satisfactory, 
but so long as the objector could question his 
capacity to grasp the infinite and convey an 
adequate revelation of God, his testimony 
would find limited acceptance. If Jesus, then, 



32 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

was a genuine and final revelation of God to 
men, he must have been more than a man 
reaching up and seeking to find God. He 
must also have been God coming down among 
men and making himself known to them. 
And this is precisely the testimony of the 
Scriptures, so that in Jesus Christ we have the 
true revelation of God to man. 

Christ's atonement was necessary for the 
pardon, justification and redemption of sinners. 
There are many theories of the atonement, 
too many for discussion here. They may easi- 
ly be grouped into two classes: First, those 
which make Christ's work on the cross termi- 
nate on men only; and, second, those which 
make it terminate also on God. The latter 
is the true view. God, indeed, was not induced 
to love men by what Christ did. He loved 
them beforehand, and Christ's work was the 
expression and proof of his love. It was not 
that God was an unwilling tyrant who had to 
be bought over to man's side by the shedding 
of Christ's blood. The atonement was God's 
own arrangement and provision to meet an 
infinite necessity of his holy and loving nature. 
God set forth Christ to be the propitiation for 
our sin in order that he might be both just 
and the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus 
Christ. 

It is sometimes argued that this idea of an 
objective or substitutionary atonement, some- 
thing done by Christ, which is the ground 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 33 

of the remission of sins, is not a part of the 
true Gospel of Christ, but was a bit of Judaism 
brought over into Christ's true Gospel by Paul, 
who was originally a Jew. This is a very in- 
consistent view of Paul. For it is very gener- 
ally recognized that Paul was the one apostle 
who fully escaped the narrow trammels of 
Judaism and grasped fully the universalism of 
the Gospel. In particular it is Paul's doctrine 
of justification by faith which revolutionized 
Judaism, or rather overthrew it completely, 
and showed that the Gospel was as wide as the 
world in its meaning and intention. This, I 
say, is quite generally admitted. And yet 
there are those who allege that wrapped up 
with Paul's universal doctrine which killed 
Judaism, is an essential part of Judaism which 
would kill the Gospel, viz., his doctrine of an 
objective atonement. Paul certainly thought 
of his doctrine in the main as the direct antith- 
esis and contradiction of Judaism. In part 
indeed it was the fulfillment of Judaism, but 
in that fulfillment Judaism was abolished. 
Paul's doctrine of atonement, then, is not an 
alien element in the Gospel. Jesus himself 
predicted that he would give his life a ransom 
for many (Matt. 20:28) and that he would 
shed his blood for the remission of sins (Matt. 
26:28). The Scriptures indeed refrain from 
philosophizing about the atonement, but they 
set forth the truth in sudi terms that we can- 
not truly say that we are left entirely in the 



34 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

dark a9 to how Christ's death saves us. The 
holiness of God no less than his love required 
the atoning work of Jesus. It is a false method 
which separates one attribute of God, such as 
his love, from other attributes, and asserts 
that God acted in a part of his nature only in 
his approach to men in the atoning work of 
Jesus. God acted always as a unit, in his 
entire nature, not in a fragment of it. 

From the fact that other religions including 
Judaism have in them the idea of sacrifice 
and propitiation, it is concluded by some that 
it must be a false idea. Fundamentally this 
assumes that everything in the non-Christian 
religions must be wholly false. Is it not far 
more likely that a universal religious idea has 
in it an element of truth than that its univer- 
sality is a mark of its falsity? Christianity 
purified and fufilled all religious ideas of men, 
emptied them of their transient and superficial 
meanings and revealed their true inward mean- 
ing. The atonement of Christ in a very spe- 
cial manner does this. In it God .appears in 
Christ, not as a distant, implacable and angry 
being, requiring a satisfaction for sin which 
man cannot supply. He himself, as holy and 
loving and yearning to save men, provides the 
satisfaction. 

Christian experience through the ages has 
given a hearty amen to the substitutionary 
atonement of Christ. The sinner knows well that 
it answers exactly his need so soon as he begins 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 35 

to reflect upon and repent of his sins. Dr. 
Bushnell, who rejected the objective atonement 
of Christ and made it simply an appeal to 
man's heart, leading him to repentance, never- 
theless admitted that the sinner could not get 
along without the "altar forms" and ideas. 
The guilty conscience requires an objective 
atonement, something done for it as well as 
in it. If this be true, and it is true beyond a 
doubt, wherever there is a deep sense of sin 
and guilt, then it must rest upon a deep neces- 
sity of some kind. Hence we are right in tak- 
ing the Scriptures at their word When they 
assert that Christ's atonement was not a mere 
dramatic spectacle, a mere object lesson appeal- 
ing to human hearts. It w r as also based upon 
a deep necessity in the law of righteousness 
and in the holy character of God. 

John 3:16; Matthew 18:11; Isaiah 42:21; Isaiah, 
chapter 53; Hebrews 1:8; Hebrews 1:3; Philippians 
2:6, 7; Ephesians 2:8; Ephesians, chapter 1; Hebrews 
7:25; Hebrews 7:26; 1 Peter 1:19; Hebrews 1:2; Ro- 
mans 8:30; 1 Timothy 2:5, C; Romans 6:lff; Roman* 
l:24-2f; Hebrews 9:18. 

THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

The New Testament reveals to us the doctrine 
of the Holy Spirit in its completed form. His 
work is a most essential and vital part of the 
religion of Christ. In the Old Testament the 
Holy Spirit wrought upon the hearts of men 
in manifold ways. He was present in creation, 



36 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

bringing the present cosmos out of the prime- 
val chaos. He was present in the prophets 
and leaders in Israel and in many other ways 
his power was manifested. Not, however, 
until we come to the New Testament do we find 
the fully developed doctrine of the Holy Spirit, 
the third person in the Trinity. 

The Holy Spirit was present everywhere in 
the earthly ministry of Jesus, clothing him 
with power for his messianic work. Through 
his power the body of Jesus was raised from 
the dead. The Spirit was given in his full- 
ness on the day of Pentecost, to abide with 
the people of Christ forever. He convinces 
the world of sin, regenerates the heart, leads 
and guides Christians, making clear to them 
revealed truth. He sanctifies and sustains 
believers in trial and temptation and struggle. 
His mission is to glorify Christ, so that what 
Christ does he does, and w r hat he does Christ 
does. In Paul's writings especially the doc- 
trine of the Holy Spirit is developed most fully. 
The whole inner life of the believer is under 
his influence and subject to his power. We are 
commanded to grieve not, quench not, and 
resist not the Holy Spirit. We are sealed 
by the Spirit. The Spirit is the earnest of 
our inheritance. The fruits of the Spirit are 
described over against the fruits of the flesh. 
The Spirit teaches the apostles in their labors 
and in the writing of their epistles. Christ 
predicted that the Spirit would come thus to 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 37 

take his place when he left the earth and that 
it was expedient for him to go in order tb*t 
the Holy Spirit might come. 

It is a strange and very significant fact that 
Christians for nearly two thousand years have 
so generally neglected the New Testament 
teaching as to the Holy Spirit. The creeds 
of Christendom have done scant justice to the 
doctrine and some of the greatest of them have 
scarcely done more than barely mention his 
office work. The Philadelphia Confession of 
Faith used by so many Baptists and the New 
Hampshire Confession also quite generally 
used are without separate articles on the Holy 
Spirit, although both of them make refer- 
ence to his work in connection with other 
doctrines. The Westminster Confession, the 
Presbyterian standard, is also lacking in any 
adequate setting forth of the work of the Holy 
Spirit, Of course the Holy Spirit is men- 
tioned in these and other great creeds in the 
statement of the doctrine of the Trinity. But 
this comes far short of the full requirements 
of the case. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit 
is so interwoven and intertwined with the 
whole of the Old and New Testaments that it 
is one of the strangest oversights that Chris- 
tians should have neglected it so long. One 
cause of this neglect is no doubt the long 
prevalence over wide areas of centralized and 
hierarchical perversions of the 'Christianity of 
the New Testament. When church govern- 



38 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

ment is lodged in the hands of men and Chris- 
tianity becomes mierged in officialism, the 
opportunity for the Spirit's guidance passes 
away. The Spirit deals directly with the heart 
of the individual, and the ecclesiastical official 
to whom is committed the function of govern- 
ing does not want any other guidance for the 
individual apart from his own. It was found, 
therefore, that truly spiritual Christians must 
needs get away from the hierarchies as far as 
possible, either in the monasteries or in small 
heretical bodies who asserted their indepen- 
dence and freedom in Christ. The creeds have 
largely been official creeds until comparatively 
modern times. Hence the doctrine of the 
Holy Spirit has naturally been kept in the 
background. 

Baptists have a very special interest in the 
doctrine of the Holy Spirit and need to reas- 
sert it with vigor. We believe in a regenerated 
church membership, in individualism and 
freedom of conscience, in the right of private 
judgment, and in the autonomy of the local 
church, in an open Bible and freedom to wit- 
neas for Christ. Hence we are peculiarly 
dependent upon the Holy Spirit for the suc- 
cessful prosecution of our work. 

Gen. 1:2; 2 Kings 2:9; Neh. 9:30; Ps. 104:30; Ps. 
106:33; Ps. 139:7ff; Ps. 143:10; Isa. 61:lff; Matt. 4:1; 
Mk. 1:10; Mk. 1:12; Luke 2:27; Luke 4:14; Jno. 1:33; 
Jno. 3:34; Jno. 2:39; Acts, chapter 2; Rom. 1:3; Rom. 
8:1; 1 Cor. 2:4; Eph. 2:18; 1 These. 5:19; 1 Tim. 4:1; 
Rev. 2:7; Rev. 22:17; John 14:16 and 26; John 15:26; 
Jno. 16:7. 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 39 

REGENERATION. 

The Holy Spirit of God regenerates the soul 
of man. No human influence, no form of cul- 
ture, no kind or degree of education, no law 
of development works this change. The direct 
action of the Holy Spirit alone accomplishes 
the result. The Spirit may and does use 
means, that is, the truth of God, in effecting 
it. But we must not confound the agent with 
the means nor the means with the agent. The 
truth is made effective to regenerate only in 
and through the power of the Holy Spirit. 

The change wrought in regeneration is 
described in the Scriptures as a "new birth", 
as a "resurrection from the dead", as a being 
"made alive" in Christ and in other ways 
which show clearly that man is helpless, by 
reason of his sinful and carnal nature, to 
work this change in himself. In it he is 
turned from the love of sin to the love of 
holiness, from a disobedient to an obedient 
life, from bondage to sin to the freedom that 
is in Christ, and is translated from the king- 
dom of darkness into the Kingdom of light, 
and led from; the service of Satan into the 
service of Christ. 



John 1:13; 1 John 3:9; 1 John 4:7; 1 John 5:1; John 
3:1-8; Tit. 3:5; 2 Cor. 5:17; 1 Pet. 1:22-25. 



40 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

KEPENTANCE. 

Repentance is essentially a turning of the 
will from the life and service of sin to the 
life and service of holiness and of obedience 
to God. The word as used in the New Testa- 
ment means a change of mind, but it is a 
word of moral significance and does not mean 
merely a change of opinion or judgment 
in the intellectual sense. Such a change 
may and does often take place without 
repentance in the New Testament meaning 
of the word. Here the will is directly and 
necessarily involved as well as the intel- 
lect and the emotions. There is a change 
of mind, indeed, and there is sorrow for 
sin. But unless sorrow and the altered 
judgment issue in the turning of the will 
from sin and its service to obedience 
and service of God there is no Gospel repent- 
ance. The change is wrought by the power 
of God through his Holy Spirit, using the 
word of truth to convict the sinner of sin, 
and to lead him to forsake it and resolve hence- 
forth to endeavor to walk before God in a man- 
ner well pleasing in his sight. 



Jer. 8:6; Jer. 20:16; Mk. 1:15; /Acts 11:18; Jno. 16:18; 
Acts 2:37, 38; Acts 16:30, 31; Luke 18:13; Matt. 11:20, 
21; Matt. 12:41; Matt. 21:19; 2 Cor. 7:10; Rev. 2:25; 
Bev. 16:9. 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 41 

FAITH. 

Saving faith includes belief and trust: belief 
of the facts and truths of the Gospel and 
trust in Jesus Christ for salvation. Faith is 
the grace which is the root of all other graces. 
When genuine it leads to a godly life. It is 
the condition of all God's gifts to us in Jesus 
Christ. It is the condition of justification and 
pardon, adoption and regeneration. None of 
these take place apart from faith. It is the ac- 
tion not only of the intellect but of the will and 
emotions as well. It brings a real knowledge 
of God. It is an abiding attitude of the soul 
and even in the life to come faith in its essen- 
tial meaning of union and fellowship with God 
will continue. Salvation has always been con- 
ditioned on faith, not only since, but also be- 
fore Christ. Abraham was saved through faith, 
that is to say, faith with him as with us is 
not a means or ground, but a condition of sal- 
vation. Our faith does not procure salvation ' 
for us, but it so relates us to Christ that he 
lays hold of us and saves us when we believe 
in him. 

"But," it is said, "were not the Old Testa- 
ment saints saved by works? And even now, 
if one should lead a perfect life, would that not 
be salvation by works?" The question complete- 
ly overlooks the relation of faith to works. None 
save Jesus ever lived a perfect life. But if one 
should so live his good works would grow 



42 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

directly out of his faith. Good works are im- 
possible in the Gospel sense without faith. The 
energy of God never coimes into the soul in 
its regenerating power save through faith. In 
Heaven we shall be without sin and our faith 
will continue there. But our heavenly perfec- 
tion will not be credited to us as works merit- 
ing salvation. They will be wrought in us 
by the power of God through our abiding 
union with him in Christ. Precisely thus 
would it have been with any pre-Christian soul 
if such a soul had attained perfection on earth. 
No spiritual perfection ever has been or ever 
will be possible without faith, and that means 
without grace. Hence it is misleading to talk 
of salvation by works. The law was given as 
a schoolmaster to lead men to Christ, but it 
could not make alive spiritually. 

Many people are troubled over the question 
of the order of faith and repentance. Which 
comes first? Clear thinking shows that the 
controversy on this point is a needless one. 
The Disciples, many of them, define faith as 
intellectual belief and then insist that faith 
must precede repentance. Many Baptists be- 
come alarmed, and to meet this view insist 
that repentance must precede faith. When 
faith is defined properly there is no occasion 
for any confusion of thought on the subject. 
Faith is more than intellectual belief, "the bare 
belief of the bare truth". Faith is also trust 
in Jesus Christ, an act of the will. Now as 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 43 

to the order of repentance and faith it may 
apparently be argued with equal force either 
way. For example we may say: Repentance 
must precede faith because saving faith is 
impossible so long as we cling to sin. This is 
logically cogent. Yet we muy also argue thus: 
Since no man can repent without the grace of 
God, and since faith alone is the condi- 
tion of grace in the soul, therefore faith must 
precede repentance. If one is disposed to 
emphasize human freedom he is likely to put 
repentance first, and if he is disposed to empha- 
size the grace of God he will put faith first. 
Thus as a mere matter of logic the case is 
evenly balanced, the conclusion depending oil 
the starting point or major premise. 

But if both are equally logical, both are 
also equally illogical. There can be no inter- 
val between Gospel faith and Gospel repen- 
tance. Each is bound up in the other. When 
one is completed the other is completed. 
Otherwise there might be an unbelieving peni- 
tent, or an impenitent believer, either of which 
ideas is contrary to the New Testament, In 
strict logic regeneration precedes both faith 
and repentance if we begin with the true 
Gospel teaching that all is due to the grace of 
God. Yet here again fact and apparent logic 
do not necessarily coincide. The correct view 
is that regeneration and repentance and faith 
are simultaneous events in the soul's life. No 
impenitent or unbelieving soul can be a regen- 



44 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

erate soul, just as no penitent believer can be 
unregenerate. When the human side is com- 
plete so is the divine side, and vice versa. 
You may say that repentance is like opening 
the hand and dropping what it holds, that is 
sin, and that faith is opening the hand and 
receiving what grace brings, that is salvation. 
And then you may infer that just as you 
must open the hand and drop what it holds 
before you can grasp what is offered, so also 
repentance, or letting go, must come before 
faith, which grasps. This argument, however, 
overlooks the vital truth that grace not only 
places salvation in the open hand, but also 
relaxes the grasp of the hand on sin. The 
goodness of God leads to repentance. Grace 
not only fills the open hand. It opens the hand. 
The union of God and man in the act of 
salvation is the actual contact of both the 
divine and the human personalities. And just 
as when you touch the table with your hand 
you cannot say the table touches your hand 
before your hand touches the table, so also you 
cannot affirm the priority of God's contact 
with man nor man's contact with God in sal- 
vation. God's grace takes the initiative but the 
human response in some form is simultane- 
ous with the effectual action of God's grace 
in the soul and the human response is com- 
plete when the divine act is complete. When 
saving faith is complete so is repentance ; when 
repentance is complete so is faith; when faith 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 45 

and repentance are complete so is regeneration ; 
and when regeneration is complete so are faith 
and repentance. 

Matt. 9:18; Mk. 1:15; Mk. 9:24; Luke 8:13; Jno. 
5:44; Jno. 6:29; Jno. 9:35; Jno. 17:20; Acts 8:37; Acta 
13:39; Rom. 3:22; Rom. 4:11; Eph. 1:19; Eph. 2:8; 
Jno. 16:8; Rom. 10:9-11; Gal. 2:16; Eph. 1:13; Rom. 
3:30; Heb. 6:12; Col. 1:23; Col. 2:7; Tit. 1:13; Acts 
3:16; Rom. 3:25. 

JUSTIFICATION AND ADOPTION. 

Justification is God's act, in and by which 
he declares the sinner free from condemna- 
tion. It takes place when the sinner turns 
from his sins and trusts in Jesus Christ and 
his atoning work for salvation. J[n justifica- 
tion the sinner is not actually made just or 
holy, but is simply given a new standing with 
God according to which his faith is imputed 
tojhim for righteousness since that faith ter- 
minates in and upon Jesus Christ the right- 
eous, Who is the Lamb of God that taketh away 
the sin of the world (Rom. 4:5, 11, 13, 22; 
John 1:29). Justification is to be distin- 
guished from regeneration in that while regen- 
eration is the change of the sinner's nature 
by the action of the Holy Spirit, justification 
is the change of the sinner's standing by a 
declarative act of God in which sins are remit- 
ted and the sinner is freed from condemnation. 
Justification again is to be distinguished from 
adoption in that while both are outward acts 



46 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

of God corresponding with the inward act of 
regeneration, adoption has to do with the pater- 
nal aspect of God's character and his relation 
to the regenerate as sons, justification is the 
expression of his judicial function. It is the 
Judge dealing with the transgressor prior to 
the act of the Father dealing with the son. 

There is no contradiction or inconsistency 
between the paternal and judicial relations of 
God to men. Sin 'and trangression put the 
sinner outside the pale of sonship in the spir- 
itual and evangelical sense. If sonship could 
exist prior to the change of the sinner's heart 
it would be merely a formal and unreal son- 
ship. The Scriptures reserve the word son for 
the higher relation of man to God \tfhich 
arises when union is restored between God and 
man and the heart is changed by the Holy 
Spirit when faith in Christ takes place. God is 
always fatherly in his yearnings and desires 
toward men. He longs for all men to become 
filial toward him, but so long as men refuse 
to act toward God as sons the relationship 
cannot be completed. God therefore does not 
change his nature when men become the sons 
of God, but the nature of man is changed 
instead. This fact will help to clear up the 
confusion of thought in many minds as to the 
question of God's Fatherhood. Fatherhood 
and sonship are members of a reciprocal rela- 
tionship which arises from similarity of moral 
and spiritual nature in God and man. To 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 47 

make God the Father of wicked men in the 
higher sense therefore of the spiritual relation- 
ship would put God's nature on a level with 
that of the sinner. Man as God's crea- 
ture, made in God's image and the special 
object of his love, is constituted for son- 
ship, and if sonship is defined in terms 
of creaturehood or original moral likeness 
to God all men may be called sons of God. 
But the Scriptures observe a wise economy 
in the use of the terms son and sonship 
by reserving it chiefly for the higher spiritual 
relationship, especially in the New Testa- 
ment, where sonship is usually declared 
to be through faith in Jesus Christ. If indeed 
sonship in the lower and higher senses were 
used interchangeably it would tend to destroy 
the meaning of the higher, and to confuse the 
values and debase the coinage of the moral 
Kingdom'. 

The parable of the Prodigal Son in the ^^ /£ 
fifteenth chapter of Luke shows how sin dis-^ 
turbs the true relations between God and 
man. Under the forms of fatherhood and 
sonship the beautiful story of man's alienation 
from and return to God is told. The son's 
sense of need was not in the first instance a 
filial feeling at all. It was bodily hunger. He 
began to be in want and would fain have eaten 
the husks fed to the swine. Next comes his sense 
of unworthiness and confession of sin. "I am 
no more worthy to be called thy son : make me 



48 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

as one of thy hired servants", is what he says 
to his father when he returns. His moral in- 
stinct was quite correct. He felt, now that he 
was penitent for his evil life, how far below 
the plane of true sonship he had been living. 
The father also recognizes this. For he says, 
"My son was dead, and is alive again ; he was 
lost and is found". Here, then, was a son 
who was not a son, and a father to whom the 
son living a sinful life was dead — that is, the 
son was as if he did not exist, until broken- 
hearted over his sins he returns to the father. 
By sin, then, the son threw away his sonship. 
He still bore the original constitution derived 
from his father, but all the higher elemjents 
of his sonship were gone. I think the ap- 
parent inconsistencies in the Scriptures, where 
at times there seems to be taught a universal 
Fatherhood of God and sonship of man (as in 
this parable), are to be explained thus. The 
abnormal conditions produced by sin placing 
man outside the pale of true sonship, and yet 
leaving him with the moral constitution be- 
stowed upon him when he was made in God's 
image — these facts account for the language 
of Scripture on the subject. God remains 
paternal in his desires, his nature does not 
change. The change is in men who have 
wandered away from him. The inconsistency 
after all, then, is not in the Scriptures, but in 
man's conduct. Som'etimes the Scriptures give 
hints of this paternal yearning of God's heart 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 49 

towards men. Sometimes they speak of the 
original and primal relation of man to God, 
or refer to man as God's offspring in a general 
sense as in Paul's sermon at Athens. But we 
find in the New Testament much emphasis 
upon the nature of that sonship which alone 
has significance for man in the highest sense, 
viz., the sonship which arises through faith in 
Christ, regeneration by the Spirit and moral 
likeness to God, a sonship so diverse from 
and so much higher than man's natural like- 
ness to God that Paul employs the word adop- 
tion to indicate how it comes to men. 

Adoption in Paul's writings then is the word 
borrowed from Roman usage to express the 
outward act of God corresponding with our 
inner spiritual change when regeneration takes 
place and we are made new creatures in moral 
and spiritual qualities. 

Acts 13:39; Rom. 5:9; Rom. 3:25ff; Isa. 53:11, 12; 
Rom. 8:1; Rom. 5:lf£; Rom. 4:4, 5; Rom. 5:21; Rom. 
6:23; Rom. 5:19; 1 Cor. 1:30, 31; 1 Tim. 4:8; Rom. 
8:15; Gal. 4:5; Eph. 1:5. 

SANCTIFICATION. 

Sanctification is the process by which regen- 
erate men are gradually transformed into the 
image and likeness of Jesus Christ. The word 
means first to be set jtpa rt to a h oly use, and 
second to beco me actually holy. In both 
senses it applies to the Christian believer. 



50 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

When the Scriptures refer to sanctification as 
a past act it usually is to be taken in the first 
sense. The Holy Spirit in the believer carries 
on the process which continues throughout the 
present life. The Spirit of God employs the 
word of truth, the appointments, services and 
ordinances of the church, the events and expe- 
riences of our daily life and various other 
means for our sanctification. 

No one becomes sinless in the present life. 
He may and should become more and more 
complete or mature as the years pass. The 
Scriptures employ the word perfect to express 
the idea of symmetry and completeness in the 
possession of all the parts, as well as of sinless- 
ness. In the sense of sinlessness it never 
applies to men in this life. Perfection 
is the goal and ideal of our Christian 
life and the most advanced, the most mature 
or "perfect" Christian, Paul declares, is he who 
has a sense of his own imperfections (Phil. 
3:13-16). 

The most saintly men and women have al- 
ways been keenly alive to their shortcomings, 
just as was Paul the apostle. In his later 
epistles Paul seems filled as never before with 
this sense of spiritual defect. He yearns to 
"know" Christ and "be found in him"; he 
counts not himself to have attained; he 
presses "towards the mark"; he forgets the 
things that are behind, etc. All this shows that 
the more vividly we realize the infinite stand- 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 51 

ard of holiness in our faith, the more distant 
do our present attainments seem below it. A 
self-complacent belief in one's own sinless "per- 
fection", therefore, is a sure mark of spiritual 
blindness. It is the same kind of mistake a 
child makes who thinks he can grasp a star. 
He is without appreciation of the interval be- 
tween him and the star. It is this sense of 
imperfection which deepens our appreciation of 
the atonement of Christ and of God's love as 
displayed therein. In his first epistle John de- 
clares that if we walk in the light as he is in 
the light we "have fellowship one with an- 
other". Then as if overcome by the dazzling 
splendor of God's light and turned back upon 
his own sinfulness, he adds, "and the blood 
of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all 
sin" (1 John 1:7). We see then how the 
sense of imperfection goes along with us 
through life, deepening indeed in a real sense 
as we make spiritual progress. Thus in the 
Christian life we see the meaning of Paul's 
paradox in his letter to the Philippians ac- 
cording to which the most mature or "per- 
fect" Christian is he who most keenly realizes 
his own imperfections and struggles hardest 
to overcome them (Phil. 3:15). There is one 
great danger we should guard against in con- 
nection with this subject of sanctification. In 
opposing the "perfectionist" or "sanctification-* 
ist" we may easily fail to emphasize the im- 
portance of growth in grace and in Christian 



52 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

character. We may adopt an attitude of con- 
tentment with the ordinary conventional 
Christian life as against the "higher life", and 
this is even worse than what we oppose. We 
may spend our time fighting the "perfectionist" 
while living a worldly life ourselves. Dr. A. J. 
Gordon said: "It is not an edifying spectacle 
to see a Christian worldling hurling stones at 
a Christian perfectionist." We may and 
should meet his errors, but we should not be 
led thereby to adopt a low standard for our- 
selves. 

Sanctification includes all of the Christian's 
relationships. Santification is social as well as 
individual. It is not merely an inward, it is 
also an outward transformation. What the 
Christian is in his relations to his fellowmen in 
business and social and civic life is the true 
index of the sanctifying process within. Noth- 
ing less than the highest ideal is worthy of the 
Christian calling. We are to aim at per- 
fection because God our Father is perfect, and 
the supreme motive and incentive to the holy 
life is the desire to be like our Father in 
Heaven. 



Phil. 2:12, 13; Eph. 4:11; Jno. 2:29; Prov. 4:18; 1 
Cor. 1:30; 1 Thess. 4:3; 2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Peter 1:2; 
Ex. 13:2; Ex. 28:41; Gen. 2:3; Jno. 10:36; Jno. 17:19; 
Acts 20:32; Rom. 15:1«; 1 Cor. 1:2; Heb. 2:11; Heb. 
10:10; Heb. 10:14. 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 53 

THE PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS. 

The believer in Jesus, who has been regen- 
erated by the power of the Holy Spirit, will 
never utterly fall away from Christ and be lost. 
He is not free from temptation; he may, 
through neglect and failure to employ the 
means of grace, grieve the Holy Spirit and 
bring reproach upon himself and the people of 
God. He will, however, turn away from his 
sins and return to his Christian duty ; he will 
not be content in the wayward life. It is the 
mark of the child of God that he cannot be 
happy in a life of sin. Besides this, God's care 
is ever over his child. God's grace ever seeks 
the wayward to bring them back. But just as 
God's loving nature and his firm purpose impel 
him continually to seek to win the wanderer 
back to the true life, so also is the renewed 
heart, the soul born of God's Spirit, inclined 
to yield to God's gracious appeals. The soul 
which yields no response to God's seeking love 
and is wholly content to live a life of world- 
liness and sin, thereby proclaims itself an 
unregenerated soul. We are not to think of 
God's preserving care of the redeemed, there- 
fore, as if it were a prevention by force and 
compulsion of the consequences of a sinful life. 
The resoonsive perseverance of the Christian 
is as essential a part of the process as God's 
preserving grace. This is the explanation of 



54 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

many New Testament passages which seem to 
imply that all depends on the act of the 
believer and not on the grace of God. The 
grace of God is effective only when it produces 
the necessary response. The possibility of a 
fall is quite a real one apart from the grace 
of God. In vain also is the grace of God apart 
from the response of our will. The New Testa- 
ment writers do not hesitate, therefore, to state 
boldly and strongly both facts, in order that 
God's grace may become effective, through 
warning and exhortation, in the turning of 
the wayward will back again to the path of 
duty. God does not lift his children into 
Heaven against their wills. Tho^whole of the 
machinery or system of grace, therefore, is 
designed to make them willing. Thus do they 
persevere while at the same time they are 
preserved. Here again much confusion of 
thought grows out of the ordinary way of 
thinking of God's grace as if it were a physi- 
cal or mechanical force, like a rope tied around 
a Christian to keep him from drowning, or a 
wall built to prevent him from falling over a 
precipice. The New Testament does not repre- 
sent it that way at all. It has many terrible 
warnings against apostacy — not indeed to teach 
apostacy but to prevent it. These passages 
are bewildering to the Christian who thinks 
of God's preserving care as an outward wall 
compelling us to keep away from the precipice. 
God preserves us by inclining us to persevere. 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 55 

A mother sent her four-year-old boy on an 
errand across a busy city street full of dangers 
of all kinds. A friend expressed surprise. The 
mother said the child had been taught to look 
carefully up and down before venturing across 
and she had no fear. This was training. The 
other would no doubt have seized her 
child by the hand and towed him across. 
God's method is not to tow us but to train us. 
Grace does not compel, it inclines us. The 
JTew Testament emphasizes training as against 
towing. If we keep this in mind we will 
understand many otherwise difficult passages. 

1 Jno. 8:31; 1 Jno. 2:19, 27, 28; 1 Jno. 3:9; 1 Jno. 
6:18; Rom. 8:28, 29; Phil, lit; Phil. 2:12, 13; 1 Jno. 
4:4; Jno. 10:26-29. 

THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 

The eternal purpose of God in the revelation 
of his will to man in the incarnation and work 
of Christ was the establishment of his King- 
dom on earth. We can here give only a very 
condensed outline of the meaning of the King- 
dom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven, both 
of which forms of expression are found in the 
New Testament. In the Old Testament all 
created things are represented as belonging to 
God's Kingdom. As Creator he is Lord of all 
things, inanimate as well as animate, suns and 
stars as well as animals and men and angels. 
He establishes, however, a Kingdom among 



56 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

men in the call of Abraham and in the cove- 
nant with Israel as a nation. That Kingdom 
passes through various stages, in the patri- 
archal, Mosaic, kingly and prophetic periods 
in the history of Israel. In none of these is 
the idea of the Kingdom perfectly realized. 
The incarnation of Jesus Christ continued 
God's work of revelation. The preaching of 
Jesus had as its central truth the Kingdom of 
God. He called m<en to repentance because 
the Kingdom of God "is at hand". There 
are various phases of meaning found in the 
word as it is employed in the New Testament. 
It means primarily the reign or rule or domin- 
ion of God in the human heart and life, but 
everywhere the Kingdom in the larger and 
wider sense of God's rule in the universe is 
taken for granted. In the New Testament the 
Kingdom of God is an inward and outward 
power. It is a present and a future reality. 
Sin 'has disturbed God's rule on earth and 
grace has come in the person of Christ and 
through his atoning work to restore it. In the 
New Testament especially is the Kingdom of 
God a new principle of redemption in the heart 
changing men into the moral and spiritual 
character required by God's will. Righteous- 
ness in all its forms is the aim and end of the 
Kingdom of God. The Gospel is God's ap- 
pointed means for the realization of the 
righteousness of the Kingdom. This King- 
dom of God is not to be identified with any 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 57 

outward ecclesiastical or civil form of govern- 
ment. In one of its phases it is practically 
identical with the spiritual or universal church. 
But it never coincides exactly with any outward 
form of ecclesiastical or civil government. 

The local church is in harmony, or is meant 
to be in harmony, w T ith the principles of the 
Kingdom. In a real sense it reproduces, or lo- 
calizes, and perpetuates the Kingdom of God 
on earth. Its doctrines and polity must con- 
form to the teachings and to the essential na- 
ture of the Kingdom. The Kingdom recedes 
somtewhat into the background after we leave 
the gospels and enter the epistles. The church 
is more prominent in the epistles. Neverthe- 
less the Kingdom still appears in the teaching 
of the epistles. Its inner nature is described 
and its future triumph is clearly indicated. 
Christ is King in the Kingdom, both in the 
gospels aind in the epistles, and he will comfc 
at last and as its King he will judge the world 
and bestow upon men their final awards. The 
Kingdom thus passes from the earthly to the 
heavenly and eternal stage. When Christ's 
mediatorial work is consummated he delivers 
up the Kingdom to God the Father. His aton- 
ing death was necessary to the realization of 
the ends of the Kingdom and a great and in- 
dispensable step was taken when the Spirit was 
given at Pentecost. The duty of Christ's peo- 
ple is to labor for the coming of God's King- 



58 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

dom on earth, even as he taught us in the 
Lord's prayer. 

Gen. 2:4ff; Ps. 47:7; Ps. 103:19ff; Ps. 104:4ff; Ps. 
119:89ff; Is. 1:2, 3; Is. 43:21; Ex. 19:3-6; Jer. 31:31ff; 
Ezek. 17:22ff; Matt. ll:10ff; Matt. 3:5, 6; Mk. 1:5; 
Luke 3:7ff; Jno. 1:19-27; Matt. 13:41; 16:28; 20:21; 
25:34; Mk. 1:15; Luke 7:50; 13:3-5; Jno. 18:37; Matt. 
5:13-16; 7:21; 7:22; 10:23; 13:41; Luke 12:8; Matt. 
13:40; 19:28; Acts 8:12; 14:22; 19:8; 1 Cor. 15:24ff; 
Eph. 5:5; Col. 1:13; Lev. 1:6; 3:21; 6:10; 11:16, 17; 
20:1-8. 

THE SECOND COMING OP CHRIST. 

The Scriptures teach that Christ will return 
in person to this earth. The time of his re- 
turn is not revealed. The Scriptures do not 
seem to warrant the belief that a state of per- 
fect piety will exist on earth when Christ re- 
turns. Christians are commanded to expect 
the coming of the Lord always. New Testa- 
ment Christians did this. There was no ex- 
plicit teaching that Christ was to come in the 
New Testament age, but Christians were con- 
stantly expecting his return. This expectation 
should not tempt us to do slovenly or super- 
ficial work, or neglect our duty. It should 
rather make us conscientious and faithful in 
the highest degree. The New Testament re^l— F 
veals no program of events which is to follow 
the return of Christ. The event itself was the 
center of the expectation. He may come to- 
morrow. He m&y not come in ten thousand 
years. 

Matt. 24:27; Matt 25:34f; Mk. 13:3-37; Luke 21:5ff; 
Acts 1:11; 1 Thess. 5:1-3; 2 Thess. 2:1-12. 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 59 

THE RESURRECTION. 

At death the bodies of all return to dust. 
There is to be a resurrection both of the just 
and the unjust. Little is taught in Scripture 
regarding the resurrection of the wicked apart 
from the fact itself. In the fifteenth chapter 
of First Corinthians, however, Paul gives a 
very glorious account of the resurrection of the 
dead in Christ. Their resurrection bodies are 
to be free from all sin and infirmity and per- 
fectly fitted for the glorified spirit. At death 
the spirits of believers go to Christ. At tHe 
resurrection body and spirit are reunited and 
glorified and enter fully upon the eternal re- 
ward in Christ. 



Matt. 22:30; Luke 14:14; John 5:29; Acts 1:22; Acts 
4:2; Acts 24:15; Rom. 6:5; 1 Cor. ch. 15; Phil. 3:10; 
2 Tim. 2:18; Rev. 20:6. 



THE JUDGMENT. 

God has appointed a day wherein he will 
judge the world by Jesus Christ. All men are 
to appear before the judgment seat of Christ. 
The word judgment means discrimination. At 
the judgment men are to be discriminated or 
separated according to moral character. The 
Scripture teaching as to the judgment day does 
not mean that the final destiny of men re- 
mains uncertain until that judgment takes 



60 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

place, as if God were ignorant as to their con- 
dition until he made an investigation. The 
judgment is rather the formal declaration of 
conditions which had previously existed. It 
is the manifestation or exhibition of the 
righteousness and the love, along with other 
attributes of God. The principle of judgment 
is in operation in the earthly life of men in 
a certain sense. The moral law operates al- 
ways and everywhere. The final judgment, 
however, is the necessary culmination of these 
temporal judgments. God's ways will then be 
vindicated to men, and the justice of all his 
dealings with them be made plain. Men will 
then know and feel the justice of all God's 
ways. Even wicked mien, in the illumination 
of that judgment, will recognize the justice of 
God's decree concerning them. 

The Scriptures declare that the righteous do 
not come into judgment (John 3:18 and 
5:24). This, however, does not mean that 
they will be absent when the great assize shall 
take place. For Paul declares explicitly that 
we shall all be made manifest before the judg- 
ment seat of Christ (2 Cor. 5:10). We need 
only to remember that the word judgment 
means to discriminate, in order to harmonize 
these apparently contradictory Scriptures. The 
discrimination of judgment will divide men 
into two classes. One class will be condemned, 
the other approved. The word judgment is 
often used to indicate the condemnatory side of 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 61 

the process. To be judged means, in that case, 
to be condemned. This is what John means 
when he asserts that believers shall not come 
into judgment. Not the condemnatory but 
the approbatory aspect of judgment will befall 
believers. They shall not come into condem- 
nation, although they, too, shall stand before 
the judgment seat of Christ. 

Judgment is to be according to works. Un- 
belief on the part of sinners leads to evil 
works ; faith on the part of Christians leads to 
good works. Works in both cases are the out- 
ward expression of a deeper condition, the at- 
titude of faith or of unbelief. The fundamental 
principle which fixes a man's place in the 
scale of moral worth is that of faith and unbe- 
lief. Since the judgment does not fix or deter- 
mine destiny, but simply declares or exhibits 
it, it is based on the outward expression of 
the soul's deeper attitude of unbelief and of 
faith. As works are the outward sign of the 
inward state, and as judgment likewise is the 
manifestation or outward sign of the inward 
state, it is entirely fitting that judgment 
should proceed on the principle of works. 

Matt. 25:32ff; Matt. 12:36; Acts 17:31; Jno. 1:22, 27; 
Rom. 1:22, 23; Mk. S:48; 2 Thess. 1:5-7; Mk. 13:35, 37; 
Luke 12:35-40; Rev. 22:20; Matt. 13:49; Rom. 1:8, f; 
Rev. 20:11-15. 



62 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

THE CHURCH. 

There are two chief senses in which the 
word church is used in the New Testament. 
In a number of passages it refers to all believ- 
ers, whether they are thought of as existing 
on earth, or on earth and in Heaven at any 
particular time, or as the total assembly of 
the redeemed in the life to come. Some take 
the New Testament teaching as to the univer- 
sal church in the last sense alone, that is, they 
assert that the universal church has no exist- 
ence at present on earth in any sense, but that 
in the life to come the local church will cease 
to be and the universal church will come into 
existence. There are passages, however, which 
forbid this view. For example, in Ephesians 
5:25-27 we read: "Husbands, love your wives, 
even as Christ also loved the church, and gave 
himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, 
having cleansed it by the washing of water 
with the word, that he might present the 
church to himself a glorious church, not 
having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; 
but that it should be holy and without blem- 
ish." In this passage the church is viewed 
as existing in time and in eternity and the 
continuity of the church which exists in time 
with that which exists in eternity is miade in- 
disputably clear. In time it is a church with 
spots and wrinkles; in eternity it is without 
spot or wrinkle. In time it needed cleansing 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 63 

by the washing of water, that is, it was an 
impure church not yet free from sin. In 
eternity this same church stands before Christ 
holy and without blemish. Now if the church 
here existing in time refers to the local church, 
then it means the same when it becomes holy 
and without blemish in eternity, and we have 
the local church with pastors, deacons and 
ordinances carried over into eternity. I know 
of no one who holds this view. The "generic" 
use of the word church is incompatible with 
Paul's meaning here. The "generic" sense 
in which Paul sometimes employs the word 
refers to the church as an institution without 
referring to any particular church. Yet in 
this usage the local church is the institution 
referred to, which, as we have seen, cannot 
be described in the language of the passage 
we are dealing with. 

Since, then, Paul clearly means the same 
thing in both parts of the sentence, his lan- 
guage can only refer to the totality of believ- 
ers both in time and in eternity. The univer- 
sal church is not an outward organization at 
all nor can it be made co-extensive with 
ecclesiastical bodies scattered over the earth 
made up of organized parts or branches. It has 
no earthly ecclesiastical functions or powers. 
Yet it is most real in that it includes all true 
believers in Jesus Christ. Faith in Jesus Christ 
indeed is the spiritual reality at the basis of the 
life of all local churches. If it be insig- 



64 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

nificant or valueless or unreal because it is 
spiritual, then that same quality is equally 
insignificant and valueless in the local church. 
The visible and tangible in the Christian reli- 
gion is valueless without the invisible and 
spiritual. The universal church is as real as 
the Kingdom of God; indeed, it is practically 
identical with it. We are not warranted, how- 
ever, in refusing to employ the word church 
in this general sense. The New Testament 
by its own very clear usage gives us most ample 
warrant for using the word church in the uni- 
versal sense as defined in the preceding 
remarks. 

The great majority of the New Testament 
passages use the word church to indicate a 
local body composed of believers in Jesus Christ 
who are associated together for the cultivation 
of the Christian life, the maintenance of the 
ordinances and discipline, and for the propa- 
gation of the Gospel. Jesus Christ is Lord 
of the church. It exists in obedience to his 
command, and has no mission on earth save 
the carrying out of his will. It must not form 
alliances of any kind with the state so that 
it surrenders any of its own functions or as- 
sumes any of the functions of civil government. 
Its government is democratic and autonomous. 
Eadi church is free and independent. No 
church or group of churches has any authority 
over any other church. Co-operation in Christ- 
ian work, however, is one of the highest duties 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 65 

and privileges of the churches of Jesus Christ, 
Yet in so doing they do not form or consti- 
tute an ecclesiasticism with functions and 
powers to be authoritatively exercised over the 
local bodies. The voluntary principle is the 
heart of the Scripture teaching as to the in- 
dividual and as to local churches. All souls 
are entitled to equal privileges in the church, 
just as all churches are entitled to equal privi- 
leges in the Kingdom of God. The indi- 
vidual precedes the group logically as well 
as in order of time, and the organization 
and government of the local church pro- 
ceeds on the principle of the voluntary 
association of free individuals in obedience 
to Christ and for purposes set forth by 
him. Church discipline is simply the group 
protecting itself against the individual. The 
church has no power of coercion in the reli- 
gious life of the individual. The individual 
stands or falls to his own Master, and is 
judged only by him. The right of the church, 
however, to protect itself against the disorderly 
individual is an unalienable right in Christ. 
The objection .sometimes made against church 
discipline on the score that it is unwarranted 
coercion overlooks this fact. 

Here we may point out the relation of local 
Baptist churches to general Baptist bodies, 
missionary, educational, etc. The latter are not 
composed of churches but of individuate. 
Churches may use them or not use them, co- 



66 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

operate with, themi or refuse to co-operate with 
them. In all such co-operation or refusal to 
co-operate, however, the church neither lassumes 
authority over the general body, nor submits 
to the authority of that body. The relation 
is voluntary on both sides. The church does 
not create nor is it created by the general body. 
Where a church is out of harmony with a gen- 
eral body it cannot legislate the general body 
into harmony with itself but it can withdraw 
if necessary without the consent of the gen- 
eral body. A general body has no power to 
retain an unwilling church in co-operative re- 
lations with it. There is no conflict of juris- 
diction between a church and a general body 
where messengers come from churches into 
meetings of general bodies. As members of 
the general body they vote and act as individ- 
ual freemen in Christ. They may act under 
the influences of the known wishes of their 
churches in measures which are considered 
in the general body. Thi§, however, is 
not ecclesiastical compulsion but spiritual in- 
fluence. General bodies are themselves autono- 
mous. No Baptist general body has authority 
over another. They exist in a graded series 
but this does not imply legislative or judicial 
authority. It is for convenience and efficiency. 
Each body is self determining as to constitu- 
tion and by laws, aims and purposes, territorial 
limits and methods. There are certain neces- 
sities which arise out of these principles of 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 67 

Baptist organization. 1. The necessity for 
clear thinking in order to avoid confusion in 
ideals and collision in the practical work of 
the Kingdom. 2. The necessity for well de- 
fined limits of function and aim in /the general 
body to avoid the assumption of church func- 
tions. 3. The necessity for courtesy and re- 
spect as between Baptist general bodies. 

The officers of the church are bishops or 
elders and deacons. The New Testament en> 
ploys the word bishop and elder to designate 
the same officer, these terms being descriptive 
of functions and not of separate officials. The 
bishop -or elder is an officer of the local church, 
not of any group of churches with general 
jurisdiction. His authority is that of influence 
and leadership rather than official. He i3 
called of the Holy Spirit to the work and is 
set apart by ordination for the discbarge of 
special functions and has no authority to lord 
it over God's heritage. And yet_as leader and 
guide the church owes to him its loyalty and 
support. His task is particularly that of spir- 
itual leadership, while the deacons are charged 
rather with the temporal affairs of the church. 

Th^ordinanc^ of a church are baptism and 
the Lord's Supper. These two set forth in a 
very beautiful and comprehensive way the 
fundamental truths of the Gospel. They are 
not sacraments but ordinances; they do not 
confer or communicate or impart grace in and 
of themselves. They are outward symbols 



68 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

which signify very profound truths 'and these 
truths have vital power in the Christian life 
when duly apprehended or spiritually discern- 
ed by the recipient when the ordinances are 
administered. There is no Scripture warrant 
whatever for any increase in the number of 
the ordinances from two to seven or any other 
number. The Roman Catholic Church is 
wholly wrong in this matter and the multi- 
plication of sacraments is a great evil in that 
body. 

Matt. 16:18; Matt. 18:17; Acts 2:47; Acts 8:1; Acta 
14:23; Rom. 16:5; 1 Cor. 14:4, 5, 23; Eph. 1:22; Eph. 
3:10; Eph. 5:24-32; Col. 1:18; Heb. 12:23. 

BAPTISM. 

Baptism is an ordinance of Jesus Christ es- 
tablished for perpetual observance by his peo- 
ple. Every believer or regenerate person is un- 
der obligation to submit to this ordinance of 
Jesus Christ. Baptism is the immersion in water 
of the believer in the name of the Father, and 
of the Sop-, and of the Holy Spirit. The 
truths symbolized in baptism are the follow- 
ing; 1. Remission o£ &ins. 2. Fellowship or 
union with Christ in hie death and resurrec- 
tion. The form of baptism strikingly symbol- 
izes death, burial and resurrection. 3. Cleans- 
ing from all unrighteousness and consecration 
to the service of God, a complete self-surrender 
to the service of the Kingdom of God and re- 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 69 

solve to walk in newness of life. Baptism is a 
prerequisite to church fellowship, and to par- 
ticipation in the Lord's Supper. Immersion is 
essential to Christian 'baptism. Other forms 
destroy the meaning of the ordinance. The 
consensus of the scholarship of all denomina- 
tions declares that immersion only is baptism. 
The Greek word to which our word baptism 
corresponds can only mean immersion. 

Baptism does not regenerate. It is to be ad- 
ministered to those who have previously been 
regenerated by the Spirit of God. Baptism 
does not secure remission of sins save in a sym- 
bolic way. The previously forgiven person is 
the only proper subject for baptism. Baptism 
is simply the outward symbol of what has al- 
ready taken place within the subject. Baptism 
confers no spiritual but only a symbolic remis- 
sion of sins. Baptism "for remission of sins" 
(Acts 2 :38) has reference only to the symbolic 
remission set forth by the act. Forgiveness, or 
remission, is inherently a divine act and to 
make it a function of baptism is to ascribe la 
divine function to an outward ordinance. 
Moreover, if baptism actually conferred remis- 
sion of sins, it would have to be repeated after 
each sin, whereas baptism is administered once 
only to each believer. 



Matt. 3:7f£; Matt. 21:25; Mk. 1:4; Rom. 6:4; Eph. 
4:5; Col. 2:12; 1 Peter 3:21; Mk. l:9ff; Acts 2:38; Acts 
2:41; Acts 8:38; Acts 18:8; Gal. 3:27. 



70 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

THE LORD'S SUPPER. 

The Lord's Supper is an ordinance of 
Christ's church wherein the elements are bread 
and wine. The bread symbolizes the body of 
Christ given for the salvation of men and the 
wine symbolizes his blood shed for the remis- 
sion of sins. The participants of this- ordinance 
are those who have been baptized upon a pro- 
fession of their faith, and who walk in an or- 
derly manner as members of a church of 
Christ. 

The following errors have been associated 
with the Lord's Supper and are to be rejected 
wholly : 

(a) The claim that in it there is a repetition 
of the sacrifice of Jesus for the sins of the 
world, as in the Roman Catholic sacrifice of 
the mass. 

(b) The claim that the bread and wine are 
the real body and blood of Christ, as in the 
false doctrine of transubstantiation. 

(c) The denial of the -cup to the people and 
in any way unduly exalting or worshiping the 
bread and wine of the ordinance. 

All the above are fatal errors and wholly 
opposed to the real meaning of the New Testa- 
ment. Like baptism, the Lord's Supper is a 
symbolic ordinance. It commemorates Christ's 
death ; it declares or sets forth that death when 
observed ; and it is prophetic of Christ's return 
to his people at the end of the Gospel age. In 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 71 

all these respects, however, it is not a sacrament 
but simply an ordinance whose value is in the 
truth •symbolized rather than in its power to 
impart grace. To observe the ordinance prop- 
erly is to discern the truth symbolized in it. 
The unworthy observance of the ordinance 
consists in the failure to discern spiritually the 
body and blood of Christ. 

Acts 2:41, 42; 1 Cor. ll:26ff; Matt. 26:26-29; Mk. 14: 
22-25; Luke 22:14-23. 

THE LORD'S DAY. 

The Lord's day is a Christian institution 
for regular observance. Works of necessity 
and mercy may be performed on the Lord's 
day, but it should be observed in resting from 
ordinary employments and in exercises of wor- 
ship and spiritual devotion. 

The first day of the week came to be 
observed by Christians instead of the seventh, 
since this seems to have been the custom of the 
Christians of the New Testament. Thus it 
perpetuates the Old Testamient principle of 
observing one day in seven, while giving it 
a Christian significance by connecting it with 
the resurrection of Christ which occurred on 
the first day of the weiek. 

The Lord's day as a civil is not to be con- 
founded with it as a religious institution. The 
state may enact laws for the observance of one 
day in seven in a secular way without giving 



72 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

to them any religious significancie in the wider 
sense. Like laws against stealing or murder, 
the state may enact such laws. But the state 
has no authority to compel men to engage in 
worship or other religious activities on Sunday. 
Religion is voluntary and religious liberty is 
opposed to any legal compulsion whatsoever 
in religious matters. This distinction needs 
to be made clear. Christians sometimes imag- 
ine that the state ought to make men observe 
the Saibbath religiously; while non-christians 
sometimes imagine that the legal prohibitions 
contained in Sunday laws are unwarranted 
intrusions of the state into their religious life. 
Both are wrong. The state cannot prescribe 
what man shall do on Sunday. It can only 
enact what they shall not do. These negative 
enactments are not religious but civil in char- 
acter, called for by public policy and the gen- 
eral welfare. As we shall see in the next arti- 
cle the state is without any religious function 
whatsoever. 



Gen. 2:3; Col. 2:16, 17; Mk. 2:27; 1 Cor. 16:1, 2; Act» 
20:7; Ex. 20:8; Kev. 1:10; Isa. 58:13, 14; Heb. 10:24, 
25; Heb. 4:3-11. 



LIBERTY OP CONSCIENCE. 

A free church in a free state is a New Testar 
ment principle which has found full expres- 
sion only in modern times and in the Western 
hemisphere. It is familiar to us in America 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 73 

and needs but brief treatment here. The great 
principle underlying religious liberty is this: 
God alone is Lord of the conscience. To him 
men must give account and only to him. The 
principle which -corresponds with this on the 
side of the state is that civil magistrates are 
ordained of God. For its own ends the state 
is sovereign. But those ends do not include 
the religious life of the individual at all. Hence 
the civil and religious life of man belong to 
different spheres entirely. The right of every 
soul to direct access to God is an inalienable 
right, with which the state must not interfere. 
(Note. The author has given much more 
extended discussion to the subject of this sec- 
tion in his work entitled "The Axioms of Reli- 

gioix".) 

Rom. 13:1-7; Matt. 22:21; Acts 5:2$; Matt. 10:28; 
Matt. 23:10; Rom. 14:4; Jno. 4:23, 24. 

MISSIONS. 

The duty of every Christian mam an'd the 
duty of every church of Christ is to seek to 
extend the Gospel to the ends of the earth. 
No Christian and no church is exempt from 
this obligation. By personal effort, by witnes- 
sing for Christ, by gifts of money, by prayer, 
by cooperation with missionary boards and 
conventions, by going in person to do mission- 
ary work in the community and state, and 
nation, and the world — all these are forms of 



74 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

statement of the missionary obligation. This 
obligation rests upon the things implied in 
our own regenerate life — since the new birth 
means the birth of love for others needing sal- 
vation ; it rests upon the express command of 
Christ given in the great commission; it rests 
upon a spiritual necessity of our renewed life 
which remains dwarfed and stunted without 
missionary activity ; it rests upon God's eternal 
purpose which is being wrought out in time, 
and which incorporates in itself the co-opera- 
tion of all the redeemed along with all the 
necessary agencies; it rests upon the incarna- 
tion and atonement of Christ — since these, 
apart from missions, cannot be adequately ex- 
plained. 



Matt. 28:18-20; Mk. 16:15-17; Luke 24:47-49; Act* 
1:6-8. 



EDUCATION. 

It is unusual to refer to education as a doc- 
trine. Yet there is ample warrant in the New 
Testament for such reference. In the great 
commission Jesus couples the duty of teaching 
with the duty of preaching. The teaching and 
preaching therein enjoined are co-ordinate and 
equal parts of the great task of Christ's people. 
The academy, the college, the university, in- 
deed, all forms of organization for teaching 
the truth, all institutions for the diffusion of 
knowledge are the direct and logical . outcome 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 75 

of the work of evangelization. The Christian 
life involves a particular view of the world and 
of God as its providential Ruler and Christian- 
ity in its doctrine of regeneration lays the 
foundation for education. 

Baptists in a very special sense are under 
obligation to foster Christian education. Some 
of the reasons are as follows : First, the Baptist 
emphasis on regeneration. A regenerate church 
membership is a cardinal Baptist doctrine. 
The regenerate life is the unfolding or growing 
life in which all the powers of man are alive 
and demand satisfaction. Education alone can 
meet all these demands. Again, the non-sacra- 
mental character of the Baptist view of the 
ordinances implies intelligence in the partici- 
pant. The ordinances do not magically convey 
grace. Only as we clearly perceive the mean- 
ing of baptism and the Lord's Supper do we 
observe them aright. This is the Baptist view. 
Clearly then intelligence is required for their 
proper observance. The Baptist view of church 
government, that is, the equality of believers 
and l'ocal self-government in the churches, re- 
quires education. Self-government requires in- 
telligence. Baptists believe not in episcopal 
authority in the ministry hut spiritual leader- 
ship. An educated ministry is essential there- 
fore to their success in the world. The right 
of private judgment in interpreting the Scrip- 
tures is another fundamental Baptist belief. 
This necessitates intelligence. Again volun- 



76 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

tary co-operation in missionary and other 
forms of activity in the Kingdom of God is our 
only Baptist method of working together for 
these great ends. Hence, we require intelli- 
gence and breadth of view, the ability to see 
things in their larger relations and to adapt 
means to ends, for the bringing in of the King- 
dom of God. All this makes imperative the 
education of our people as widely as possible. 
Christian education is not necessarily in con- 
flict with education by the state. Indeed they 
mutually supplement eadi other. The public 
school system is necessary, but Christian ideals 
and the Christian type of civilization are de- 
pendent upon education under Christian au- 
spices. Other things being equal, therefore, 
the denomination of Christians which most 
widely and most thoroughly promotes educa- 
tion will most deeply impress the world. At 
home and abroad there comes to Baptists of 
our times an imperative call to reinforce 
existing schools and to establish new ones 
wherever they are needed. 

Deut. 4:5ff; Ps. 119; Is. 54:13; Jno. 8:2; Matt. 28:20; 
Acts 15:35; 18:11; 28:31; Rom. 12:7; Col. 1:28; Gal. 
«:C; Is. 9:16; 1 Jno. 2:27; Luke 23:5. 

SOCIAL SERVICE. 

Baptists believe in every form of righteous- 
ness: Personal righteousness or right living in 
individual conduct; domestic righteousness or 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 77 

right living in the home; civic righteousness 
or right living in the state; social righteous- 
ness or right living in society; commercial 
righteousness or right living in business. This 
demand for righteousness in all spheres is the 
direct result of the doctrine of regeneration. 
The new birth affects the whole person in all 
relationships. No Baptist, therefore, can be 
indifferent to movements for the improvement 
or purification of life anywhere. 

_The_Goispel is adequate for the solution of 
all social problems. Patience and perseverance 
and intelligence of a high order, however, are 
required to apply the principles of righteous- 
ness to all life's relationships. The church, as 
such, cannot enact laws, or become the organ 
of social reform save indirectly. Yet the pulpit 
should expound the principles of right living 
in all spheres, and members of our churches 
should stand for all forms of righteousness not 
only in their own personal life but in public 
life as well. 



Ezek. 8:5ff; Ezek. 18:28ff; Hosea, chs. 4 and 5; 
Amos, chs. 3 and 4; Matt., chs. 5 to 7; Rom., chs. 12 
to 16; Epistle of James. 



HEAVEN AND HELL. 

According to Christian teaching Heaven is 
both a place and a state. The emphasis in the 
New Testament is everywhere upon the char- 
acter which fits a man for Heaven rather than 



78 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

the exact locality or precise teaching as to the 
activities of Heaven. The place and the en- 
vironment fit the character but the character 
is more determinative of the environment than 
environment is of character. 

In Heaven we persist in our individual lives. 
Christianity everywhere emphasizes the value 
of personality and individuality. The Chris- 
tian Heaven is far removed from the Buddhist 
or Brahman reabsorption in the infinite or 
Nirvana. As personality survives in the life to 
come, of course earthly experiences and earthly 
knowledge leave their permanent impress upon 
us. Earthly ties and what they meant to us are 
a part of ourselves. There would be little or 
nothing of any one of us left if the life on 
earth and our earthly relationships were blotted 
out in Heaven. Memory survives along with 
will and intellect. Our whole earthly life and 
experience enter into the final result in char- 
acter, although of course all is transfigured, 
purified and glorified. The question often asked 
whether Christians will know each other in 
Heaven, really answers itself upon slight reflec- 
tion apart from the hints which Scripture gives. 
We could scarcely remain ourselves without 
such recognition. The change which comes at 
•death is not a change of moral character or of 
individuality. If you shoot an arrow across a 
river it is the same arrow on the other side as 
on this. If you put a diamond in a casket and 
carry it into the next room it is the saime dia- 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 79 

mond when you reopen the casket and take it 
out. So also with us in death. The soul, the 
individuality, the character, is the arrow. When 
it is shot across the stream of death it abides 
the same. Its surroundings are changed but it 
remains fundamentally what it was. This life 
gives shape to the jewel of the soul, cuts its 
angles and facets, as it were ; the next life may 
brighten it and perfect its shape, but it remains 
essentially the sarnie. 

In the New Testament Heaven is repre- 
sented to us in symbols or figures of speech for 
the most part and the descriptions of it are in 
large measure negative rather than positive. 
We gather, however, that there are at least 
three elements of bliss in the New Testament 
picture of Heaven. First, Heaven is relief; 
relief from sin, from care, from loss, from sor- 
row, from laborious and exhausting toil, relief 
in short from all the things which blight and 
curse our life on earth. Secondly, Heaven is 
reward. In the early chapters of the Revelation 
the rewards of Heaven are set forth under nu- 
merous forms which are very suggestive of in- 
dividuality and variety in their bestowment. 
The pillar in the temple of God suggests sta- 
bility; the right to enter into the gates of the 
city suggests privilege; the white robe suggests 
purity; the white stone suggests intimacy of 
personal relation with Christ; that God shall 
wipe away all tears from our eyes is an exqui- 
sitely tender and sublime declaration of con> 



80 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

fort for the sorrowing. In the third place, 
Heaven is realization. No doubt many lives 
which are broken and disappointed will find 
fruition and self-realization in the life to come. 
Heaven is represented as a place of intense 
activity, since the redeemed serve God day and 
night in his temple. Heaven as a place of 
eternal inactivity would be of little value and 
very unattractive. The sluggard is the last 
man who should dream of Heaven as the ful- 
fillment of his ideal. The rest of Heaven does 
not mean cessation from work, but from toil- 
some and exhausting work. We are made for 
action in body -and brain alike. Inaction 
therefore would be death. Heaven as realiza- 
tion, then, means joyous activity without ex- 
haustion in a perfect environment, and in a 
perfectly congenial society. It means eternal 
growth towards God and his infinitude, eternal 
achievement and a joy corresponding. 

The awards of the day of judgment will 
be final. The wicked shall go away into end- 
less punishment, the righteous into eternal 
life. The same word applies to the duration 
of the state of both classes. That word is not 
merely qualitative as if it described only 
the nature and not the duration of the awards 
of the two classes. It also means duration, 
that is, endlessness. So far as the Scriptures 
teach we must hold to the endlessness of the 
state of the wicked as well as the righteous and 
the Scriptures are very explicit on the point. 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 81 

Passages which have been cited to prove that 
the wicked m/ay have a second probation and 
be fully restored, are none of them conclusive, 
and all must be understood in the light of 
those passages which admit of no doubt what- 
soever. 

It is sometimes urged that it is unfair to in- 
flict infinite punishment for a finite sin. This 
objection overlooks the fact that the punish- 
ment will continue no longer than the sin. 
Sinners confirmed in sin will sin forever. The 
punishment will simply keep pace with the sin. 

It is a mistake to make the problem and the 
mystery of eternal punishment turn wholly on 
the question of God's love. It turns equally 
on the question of human freedom and man's 
choice of evil. Men would revolt in the depth 
of their souls and rebel with all their power if 
God were to use coercion in dealing with us in 
the sense of forcing our wills. This he will not 
do because he has endowed us with freedom]. 
And yet the demand that all men be finally 
saved as a means of vindicating God's govern- 
ment is equivalent to a demand that God shall 
use coercion and compel the lost to repent. 
Freedom is God's gift to m<an which lifts him 
above the brutes and makes him like God. 
Yet it is an endowment with fearful alterna- 
tives of choice. We sihould think of this when 
we are tempted to arraign God's government 
for the existence of 'an endless hell. Hell is 
the monumental expression of the abuse of 



82 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

human freedom. This is the key to its mean- 
ing. This alone explains it. 



Eph. 1:3-20; 3:10; 2 Tim. 4:18; Heb. 11:16; Matt. 
S:22:29; 10:28; 11:23; 18:9; Luke 16:23; 2 Peter 4:1; 
Matt. 19:29; Luke 18:30; Mk. 3:29; Matt. 25:40fC; 
Rev., chs. 2 and 3; 14:10, 11; Rev., chs. 20, 21, 22, 23. 



THE NEW HAMPSHIRE DECLARATION 
OF FAITH. 

Two notable Confessions of Faith have found 
acceptance among Baptists in America, the 
Philadelphia Confession, which was promul- 
gated by the Philadelphia Baptist Association, 
and the New Hampshire "Declaration" pro- 
mulgated by the State Convention of New 
Hampshire. The former is a lengthy docu- 
ment. When published in Charleston, S. C, 
1813, with the addition of a "Summary of 
Church Discipline" and "The Baptist Cate- 
chism", it contained three hundred and three 
pages. No record is had of the first publication 
of this Confession, but in 1742 a new edition 
was officially ordered printed. It bears the 
imprimatur of Benjamin Franklin. 

Prof. W. J. MoGlothlin, D.D., Ph.D., says in 
his "Baptist Confessions of Faith", page 298: 

"Many churches and other associations, both 
North and South, adopted this Confession. In 
recent years it has been losing ground, espe- 
cially in -the North, but it is still widely used, 



84 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

and in the South is probably the most influen- 
tial of all 'Confessions." 

This Confession is strongly Calvinistic, and 
it is an exact reproduction of the Assembly 
Confession, London, 1689, with the addition 
of two articles, one on Singing Psalms and the 
other on Laying on of Hands, both of which 
are commended. 

The New Hampshire Declaration, as will be 
seen, came much later and is very much 
shorter. It was incorporated by Dr. J. M. 
Pendleton, 1867, in his "Church Manual" ; and 
by Dr. E. T. Hiscox, 1890, in his "Standard 
Manual". Recently it has been adopted by 
the Landmark Convention and as well by the 
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 
the latter making one change whidi causes 
"visible" church to read "particular" church. 

Dr. J. Newton Brown, 1853, editorial secre- 
tary of the American Baptist Publication So- 
ciety, did more than anyone else to hring this 
Declaration to its present form. On 1 his own 
authority he revised it and added two articles. 
The changes made are enclosed in brackets. 
The two new articles are numbers VIII. and X. 
This Declaration has -become almost the sole 
Confession used in the North, East and West, 
where Calvinism has become most modified by 
Arminianism. The word "Declaration" is used 
for this Confession 'because the New Hampshire 
Baptists expressly so decided it should be called. 
Those who may wish for a more extended dis- 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 85 

cussion of Baptist Confessions are referred to 
Prof. McGlothlin's book to which we have re- 
ferred. 

The New Hampshire Declaration is as fol- 
lows: 

I. OF THE SCRIPTURES. 

We believe [that] the Holy Bible was writ- 
ten by mien divinely inspired, and is a perfect 
treasure of heavenly instruction; that it has 
God for its author, salvation for its end, the 
truth, without any mixture of error, for its 
matter; that it reveals the principles by which 
God will judge us; and therefore is, and Shall 
remain to the end of the world, the true center 
of Christian union, and the supreme standard 
by which all human conduct, creeds, and opin- 
ions should be tried. 

II. OT THE TRUE GOD. 

[We believe] That there is one, and only 
one, living and true God, [an infinite, intelli- 
gent Spirit,] whose name is Jehovah, the 
Maker and Supreme Ruler of Heaven and 
earth; inexpressibly glorious in holiness; [and] 
worthy of all possible honor, confidence and 
love; revealed under the personal and relative 
distinctions of the Father, the Son, and the 
Holy Spirit; equal in every divine perfection, 
and executing distinct but harmonious offices 
in the great work of redemption. 



86 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

III. OF THE FALL OF MAN. 

[We believe] That man was created in a 
state of holiness, under the law of his Maker; 
but by voluntary transgression fell from that 
holy and happy state ; in consequence of which 
all mankind are now sinners, not by constraint 
but choice, being by nature utterly void of 
that holiness required by the law of God, 
wholly given to the gratification of the world, 
of Satan and of their own sinful passions, 
therefore under just condemnation to eternal 
ruin, without defense or excuse. 

IV. OF THE WAY OF SALVATION. 

[We believe] That the salvation of sinners 
is wholly of grace; through the Mediatorial 
Offices of the Son of God, who [by the appoint- 
ment of the Father, freely] took upon him our 
nature, yet without sin ; honored the [divine] 
law by his personal obedience, and made atone- 
ment -for our sins by his death; being risen 
from the dead he is now enthroned in Heaven ; 
and uniting in his wonderful person the tender- 
est sympathies with divine perfections, [he] 
is every way qualified to be a suitable, a com- 
passionate and an all-sufficient Savior. 

V. OF JUSTIFICATION. 

[We believe] That the great Gospel blessing 
which Christ of his fullness bestows on such 
as believe in him, is justification; that justifi- 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 87 

cation consists in the pardon of sin and the 
promise of eternal life, on principles of right- 
eousness; that it is bestowed not in considera- 
tion of any works of righteousness which we 
have done, but solely through his own re- 
demption and righteousness, [by virtue of 
which faith his perfect righteousness is freely 
imputed to us of God;] that it brings us into 
a state of most blessed peace and favor with 
God, and secures every other blessing needful 
for time and eternity. 

VI. OF THE FREENESS OF SALVATION. 

[We believe] That the blessings of salvation 
are made free to all by the Gospel; that it is 
the immediate duty of all to accept them by a 
cordial, [penitent,] and obedient faith; and 
that nothing prevents the salvation of the 
greatest sinner on earth except his own [in- 
herent depravity and] voluntary refusal to 
submit to the Lord Jesus Christ, which refusal 
will subject him to an aggravated condemna- 
tion. 

VII. OF GRACE IN REGENERATION. 

[We believe] that in order to be saved, we 
must be regenerated or born again; that re- 
generation consists in giving a holy disposition 
to the mind ; and is effected in a manner above 
our comprehension or calculation, by the 
power of the Holy Spirit, [in connection with 



88 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

divine truth,] so as to secure our voluntary 
obedience to the Gospel; and that its proper 
evidence is found in the holy fruit which we 
bring forth to the glory of God. 

VIII. OF REPENTANCE AND FAITH, 

[This article added in 1853.] 
We believe that Repentance and Faith are 
sacred duties, and also inseparable graces, 
wrought in our souls by the regenerating Spirit 
of God; whereby being deeply convinced of 
our guilt, danger, and helplessness, and of the 
way of Salvation by Christ, we turn to God 
with unfeigned contrition, confession, and sup- 
plication for mercy; at the same time heartily 
receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as our Prophet, 
Priest and King, and relying on him alone 
as the only and all-sufficient Savior. 

IX. of god's purpose of grace. 

[We believe] That Election is the gracious 
purpose of God, according to which he [gra- 
ciously] regenerates, sanctifies, and saves sin- 
ners; that being perfectly consistent with the 
free agency of man, it comprehends all the 
means in connection with the end; that it is 
a most glorious display of God's sovereign 
goodness, being infinitely [free,] wise, holy, 
and unchangeable; that it utterly excludes 
boasting, and promotes humility, [love,] 
prayer, praise, trust in God, and active imita- 
tion of his free mercy ; that it encourages the 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 89 

use of means in the highest degree; that it is 
ascertained by its effects in all who [truly] 
believe the gospel; [that it] is the foundation 
of Christian assurance; and that to ascertain 
it with regard to ourselves, demands and de- 
serves our utmost diligence. 

X. OF SANCTIFICATION. 

[Added in 1853.] 

We believe that sanctification is the process 
by which, according to the will of God, we are 
made partakers of his holiness; that it is a 
progressive work ; that it is begun in regenera- 
tion; and that it is carried on in the hearts 
of believers by the presence and power of the 
Holy Spirit, the Sealer and Comforter, in the 
continual use of the appointed means — espe- 
cially the Word of God, self-examination, self- 
denial, watchfulness and prayer. 

XI. OF THE PERSEVERANCE OF SAINTS. 

[We believe] That such only are real believ- 
ers as endure unto the end ; that their persever- 
ing attachment to Christ is the grand mark 
which distinguishes them from mere profes- 
sors; that a special Providence watches over 
their welfare ; and [that] they are kept by the 
power of God through faith unto salvation. 



90 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

XII. [of the] harmony of the law and the 

GOSPEL. 

[We believe] That the Law of God is the 
eternal and unchangeable rule of his moral 
government; that it is holy, just, and good; 
and that the inability which the Scriptures as- 
cribe to fallen men to fulfill its precepts, arises 
entirely from their love of sin ; to deliver them 
from which, and to restore them through a 
Mediator to unfeigned obedience to the holy 
law, is one great end of the Gospel, and of the 
means of grace connected with the establish- 
ment of the visible church. 

XIII. OF A GOSPEL CHURCH. 

[We believe] That a visible church of Christ 
is a congregation of baptized believers, asso- 
ciated by covenant in the faith and fellowship 
of the Gospel; observing the ordinances of 
Christ; governed by his laws; and exercising 
the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in 
them by his word ; that its only proper officers 
are bishops or pastors, and deacons, whose 
qualifications, claims, and duties are defined in 
the Epistles to Timothy and Titus. 

XIV. OF BAPTISM AND THE LORD'S SUPPER. 

[We believe] That Christian baptism is the 
immersion of a believer in water, in the name 
of the Father [and] Son, and Spirit, to show 
forth in a solemn and beautiful emblem, our 



BAPTIST BELIEFS. 91 

faith in a crucified, buried, and risen 
Savior, with its purifying power; that it is pre- 
requisite to the privileges of a church relation ; 
and to the Lord's Supper, in which the mem- 
bers of the church, by the [sacred] use of bread 
and wine, are to commemorate together the 
dying love of Christ; preceded always by sol- 
emn self-examination, 

XV. OP THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

[We believe] That the first day of the week 
is the Lord's day, or Christian Sabbath ; and is 
to be kept sacred to religious purposes, by ab- 
staining from all secular labor and [sinful] 
recreations; by the devout observance of all 
the means of grace, 'both private and public; 
and by preparation for that rest which re- 
maineth for the people of God. 

XVI. OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 

[We believe] That civil government is of 
divine appointment, for the interests and good 
order of human society; and that magistrates 
are to be prayed for, conscientiously honored, 
and obeyed, except [only] in things opposed 
to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is 
the only Lord of the conscience, and the Prince 
of the kings of the earth. 



92 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

XVII.. OP THE KIGHTEOUS AND THE WICKED. 

[We believe] That there is a radical and 
essential difference between the righteous and 
the wicked ; that such only as through faith are 
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and 
sanctified by the Spirit of our God, are truly 
righteous in his esteem ; while all such as con- 
tinue in impenitence and unbelief are in his 
sight wicked, and under the curse; and this 
distinction holds among men both in and after 
death. 

XVIII. OF THE WORLD TO COME. 

[We believe] That the end of this world is 
approaching: that at the last day Christ will 
descend from Heaven, and raise the dead from 
the grave to final retribution; that a solemn 
separation will then take place ; that the wicked 
will be judged to endless punishment, and the 
righteous to endless joy; and that this judg- 
ment will fix forever the final state of men in 
Heaven or hell, on principles of righteousness. 



A CHURCH COVENANT. 

BY J. NEWTON BROWN. 

Having been led, as we believe, by the Spirit 
of God, to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our 
Savior, and on the profession of our faith, hav- 
ing been baptized in the name of our Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, we do 
now in the presence of God, angels, and this 
assemlbly, most solemnly and joyfully enter 
into covenant with one another as one 'body in 
Christ. 

We engage, therefore, by the aid of the Holy 
Spirit, to walk together in Christian love; to 
strive for the advancement of this church, in 
knowledge, holiness, and comfort, to promote 
its prosperity and spirituality; to sustain its 
worship, ordinances, discipline and doctrines, 
to contribute cheerfully and regularly to the 
support of the ministry, the expenses of the 
church, the relief of the poor, and the spread 
of the Gospel through all nations. 

We also engage to maintain family and se- 
cret devotion; to religiously educate our chil- 



94 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

dren, to seek the salvation of our kindred and 
acquaintances, to walk circumspectly in the 
world, to be just in our dealings, faithful in our 
engagements and exemplary in our deport- 
ment, to avoid all tattling, backbiting and ex- 
cessive anger, to abstain from the sale and use 
of intoxicating drinks as a beverage, and to be 
zealous in our efforts to advance the Kingdom 
of our Savior. 

We further engage to watch over one an- 
other with brotherly love, to remember each 
other in prayer, to aid each other in sickness 
and distress, to cultivate Christian sympathy in 
feeling and courtesy in speech, to be slow to 
take offense, but always ready for reconcilia- 
tion, and mindful of the rules of our Savior 
to secure it without delay. 

We moreover engage that when we remove 
from this place, we will as soon as possible 
unite with some other church, Where we can 
carry out the spirit of this covenant and the 
principles of God's word. 



CHURCH COVENANT 

BY E. T. HISCOX. 

Having been, as we trust, brought by divine 
grace to embrace the Lord Jesus Christ, and to 
give ourselves wholly to him, we do now sol- 
emnly and joyfully covenant with each other 
to walk together in him, with brotherly love, 
to his glory, as our common Lord. We do, 
therefore, in bis strength, engage — 

That we will exercise a Christian watchful- 
ness over each other, and faithfully warn, ex- 
hort, and admonish each other as occasion may 
require: 

That we will not forsake the assembling of 
ourselves together, but will uphold the publiq 
worship of God and the ordinances of his 
house: 

That we will not omit closet and family re- 
ligion at home, nor neglect the great duty of 
religiously training our children, and those un- 
der our care, for the service of Christ and the 
enjoyment of Heaven: 

That, as we are the light of the world, and 
the salt of the earth, we will seek divine aid, to 



96 BAPTIST BELIEFS. 

enable us to deny ungodliness and every world- 
ly lust, and to walk circumspectly in the world, 
that we m»ay win the souls of men : 

That we will cheerfully contribute of our 
property, according as God hais prospered us, 
for the maintenance of a faithful and evan- 
gelical ministry among us, for the support of 
the poor, and to spread the Gospel over the 
earth : 

That we will in all conditions, even till 
death, strive to live to the glory of (him who 
hath called us out of darkness into his marvel- 
ous lighit. 

"And may the God of peace, who brought 
again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great 
Shepherd of the $heep, through the blood of the 
everlasting covenant, make us perfect in every 
good work to do his will, working in us that 
which is well pleasing in his sight through 
Jesus Christ, to whom be glory, for ever and 
ever. Amen." 



MAY 17 1912 



